Who We Used To Be
by sweetprincipale
Summary: A short Spuffy, just a small scene from a life that should have been given a second chance. Set after Angel S. five, acting as if no comic series or novels occurred. Consider this an alternate universe, it'll be easier. Will be M. Please read and review! Sunnydale Memorial Awards Nominee, Round 26.
1. Chapter 1

**Who We Used To Be**

**by Sweetprincipale**

_A short two or three chapter piece, just a tiny snippet of life, set after Angel season five, acting as if no comic series or novels occurred. Consider this an alternate universe, it'll be easier._

_Author's Note: I needed a break from novel length pieces, guys. Work on the big projects resumes this week._

_Dedicated to all the ones who read, and doubly so to all the ones who review. _

_Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine._

**Part I**

Spike looked in the mirror, and of course, saw nothing. "Just hope I don't look as bad as the big broodin' idiot." He muttered and started swigging straight from a gallon jug of blood. His phone rang and he groaned and swore as he answered. Who in the world would call him, anyway? Everyone who had his number had died today or was close to death at the moment, hardly the time to make a call. _Unless one of them had kicked off. No, don't think like that. Probably a soddin' wrong number, or even worse, a political survey call._

Spike whipped the phone to his ear. "I jus' saved the bloody world. Again. I'm not feelin' so hot, an' frankly, I think I might be in mournin' for people I ought to hate! This better be damned important!" His groan had turned into a full throated snarl by the end of his unorthodox greeting.

A clipped voice ignored his outburst and spoke calmly."A female guest was here to see Angel. She was unaware of your presence in this city and seemed both infuriated and elated when I told her you were recuperating from our epic battle at your own apartment. I directed her to your address."

"Blue!" Spike felt panic seizing him and he took it out on the being he had known as the sweet girl named Fred, now the cold, deadly ex-goddess Illyria, and sometimes, in his disregard for due respect, he called her the shade of her hair and her startling eyes. "Why could you- how could you- wait, it is Buffy, isn't it?"

"Yes. She sat by Angel's bedside for a few hours. In our conversation, your name was mentioned. She wanted to know your location, I provided the address. Then she asked who would look after Angel, and I assured her I would, and care for Charles Gunn as well."

"You do it all, Blue, don't you?" Spike said admiringly, still grateful beyond words to this creature, one he'd once hated. He couldn't even work up a good snit about her giving Buffy his address, even though he had mixed feelings about it. Very mixed.

"I cannot take credit for the final burst of primordial power I displayed that dispatched the beasts and closed the hell portal." Illyria's voice shook. "I did not know I had that ability. I did not know- that the shell's love could become_ my_ love. I did not know that love was a power, and that lost love creates the most powerful and intense fury. More strength than I had ever felt, even as an immortal."

"Yeah, well... it can cause all kinds of strong emotions, Luv." He lit a smoke in his agitation. "Angel all right enough?" Buffy'd probably be here for him. She would make a brief detour to his basement flat to yell at him, question him, maybe punch him or kiss him. Never could tell with her. Although yeah, at the end...he could tell. He'd buggered that up, though.

"Angel is in and out of consciousness. He will heal, of course. Gunn is worse, and mortal, so his fate is uncertain. I believe they are considering some organ transplants. He lost a lot of blood, and I believe his spleen is also being removed because of the blood loss and it's failure to assist in making new cells." Illyria was cold and clinical as always- yet somehow she sounded pained underneath. "Do you realize out of all - only we four remain?"

"Better than usual, Ducks." Spike's tone softened. "You be all right?"

"I am not used to being a caregiver. I am used to being feared and worshipped." He voice faded slightly. "I became used to Wesley's care of me. Even if he only did it for the sake of Fred."

"He loved her. But he came to respect you."

"It is not fair. I came to love him. As he lay dying. Why- why do humans or other beings sometimes only realize the truth and depth of their love as the object of that emotion is about to die?"

Painful flashes came back to Spike. Burning hands joined, green eyes looking at him full of tears, a whisper, "I love you" and an almost flippant rejoinder, "No you don't, but thanks for sayin' it." replayed in his head. "Can't say. You usually realize a hell of a lot, just before it all goes bang an' up in smoke."

"This girl that looks for you? She was Angel's?"

"She'll always be Angel's." _For a few months, I pretended she was mine..._

"Angel doesn't call her name in his delirium. He calls for Cordelia."

"Figures. Never did know a good thing when he had it. Bloody noble types."

"You did just fight to your almost certain final death for a city who wants to kill your kind and a purpose you don't wholeheartedly embrace."

"I embrace the good! I just like my vices, Pet."

"Do not call me that term. It irks me."

"You irk us all. _Pet_."

"Do not anger me. I still have power, apparently."

"I know you do. But- oh hell, Blue! How long ago did Buffy leave?"

"Shortly before I called you, of course."

"You still at that friend of Gunn's?" Spike had helped get Gunn to the hospital, Illyria was strong enough to pick Angel up like a doll and carry him on foot to the address Gunn gave just before he went into some sort of seizure and passed out.

"Yes, Anne has given us a place in the basement and she's holding vigil at the hospital with Charles now."

"Hm. I'll be over later, check on him. I s'pose I ought to, bein' on the same side, an' all." He paused, ran a tired and broken hand over the back of his bitten neck and sighed. "You're alright?"

"I'm tired. I'm tired, and it hurts inside, even though I'm not injured."

"You're injured plenty. Heartache. It's an emotion. You'll get used to it. Tell you what, you curl up beside his Unconsciousness and let him hold you with what's left of his arms, an' you hold him."

"For what purpose?" Illyria sounded faintly disgusted at the prospect.

"It's called comfort. Sometimes, after you've had a real bad time of it, you do that with someone you know. Not necessarily someone you love."_ Like me an' Slayer. One sided for the longest time. Maybe always. If not at the end, it will be now. Still- there was some comfort for both of us in it._

"I will do as you suggest." There was a pause. "I am glad you're still amongst the living."

"You, too." He rang off, returned to his blood and went through a dozen opening lines and attitudes. Brash and unconcerned. Apologetic. Explanatory. Make it into a joke, make it into a heartfelt outpouring- and then he smelled her scent, sensed her, just outside his door, and the world washed out from under his feet.

He could feel her hesitating outside his door, like she sometimes used to hesitate outside his crypt when she came for one of their trysts. Everything in him seemed to tense in hope and anticipation and whatever passed for adrenaline in a dead man's system. He walked towards the door, and he could feel her heat on the other side of it. He pressed his hand to the wood and knew, somehow just knew, her hand was pressing the exact spot on the other side. He stopped thinking about what he was going to say and just stood still, all attention focused on that heat signature and scent he had so recently gone on a hunt for. Focused on the miracle that the owner of it was now here to see him.

He stood frozen.

* * *

She was frozen in place, unable to lift her hand back off of the wood to make the required tapping sound needed when you knocked on a door. It wasn't because she didn't want to go in, it was because she didn't know what to do when she got_ in there._

_ So much has happened. I can tell him anything, I can tell him everything, I always could. Communication wasn't an issue for us. Okay, we severely needed to work on using our words instead of our hands- or other body parts, but it's not like he didn't try to be there for me. And I tried to be there for him. At the end, when it was too late. _

_ Stupid jackass! Why didn't he tell me, _why?_! So it's been a good year of rebuilding my life and taking a break from guys for six months in between Spike's death- more dead death- but if he didn't die- crap! Hate this life all over again when I have to think about him dying and then coming back and not coming to see me. Not right away, not when I wasn't trying to "move on." Why'd he wait until just recently? I thought he loved me._

_ But he didn't think I loved him..._

_ Or maybe, _Buffy rested her forehead on the door, _maybe he thought no matter what I said, I really loved Angel. I guess that's fair. Seeing as until a couple hours ago I was wondering about that myself._

* * *

_Three hours ago..._

"This is the place? Not what I pictured. What, Wills?" Buffy was speaking into her cell phone and walking towards a large house that had been converted to a teen shelter, according to the sign on the fence. "Yeah, that's what it says, teen shelter. So I'm in the right place? Your scrying crystals aren't having an attitude problem are they, since you haven't used them in a year? Okay, okay! Can't you take a joke?" Buffy paused and leaned on the railing leading up the steps. "Love you, too Wills. Say hi to Kennedy."

"Hi, would you like to come in?" A cherub cheeked blonde opened the front door and stared down at Buffy. "You don't have to stay, if you- oh my God! Buffy?" Anne flew down the stairs and plowed into one of the people she considered a true hero. "Buffy! It's me! Anne! Or- well- Lily! Chantrelle, Lily, Anne, it's finally just Annie or Anne now, oh my God, how are you!"

"Kind of squished." Buffy cried in a muffled voice inside the embrace. She pulled free and stared at her affectionate welcomer. "Anne! Hi!" Her smile of recognition turned sad as she took in the sight of her acquaintance in front of the shelter. "So. You- uh- live here?"

"Oh, yeah. But not like that, I'm the founder and director. Of this one and three others, thanks to some money someone helped us raise." Her eyes flickered for a moment and then resumed their happy, steady gaze, locked on Buffy. "It's so good to see you. Although, if you're here for the epic, Book of Revelations-style, destroyed a three mile chunk of LA event, you're about eight hours too late."

"So I heard." Giles had told her as soon as one of his seers in their affiliated coven told him. Getting it confirmed wasn't hard, all they had to do was flip to the news and the top story was about a theatrical publicity stunt gone wrong, a stunt involving "dragons" and "dozens of people dressed as monsters", and how the city of Los Angeles was burning, buildings were toppling, solar flares were lighting up the sky, and people were being evacuated from the center of the disaster.

That was followed by a long conversation- slash- battle with Giles, Dawn, and Xander, but they had finally seen her off on a plane with the promise to have a follow up contingent of new slayers on stand by to fly over if needed. Add in the travel time from Rome and yeah- apocalypse over.

"I'm not here for the battle. I mean I was trying to be here for it. I mean- I'm here for Angel. I heard he was here?" Buffy shook herself out of her thoughts and back to her explanation. "Which, frankly, strikes me as weird, but hey, I'm used to weird."

"Well, he_ is_ here." Anne's face was grave. "I think he's going to be okay. I hope."

With ice filling her stomach, Buffy followed Anne in and through the kitchen, and down dimly lit stairs to a basement rec room lined with couches and a big television, and ping pong tables. "Well, at least he can have fun while he rests up."

"Oh, no, it's just that this is the only room without windows, plus, the rec room isn't done yet, so none of the kids come down here."

"Declare yourself!" A wild haired, wild eyed woman suddenly appeared, springing from the darkness of a corner, and slammed herself in front of Buffy.

"De- what myself?" Buffy blinked and rocked back on her heels.

"She's okay, Illyria. This is Buffy. She's a good guy."

Illyria regarded her quizzically. "You are here to assist?"

"That was the plan. I see you don't need the help right now, but I thought I'd say hi to Angel before I flew back to the other side of the world." Buffy felt a weird sense of deflation. She had been prepared to fight, and not worry about relationship crap. Mostly. Maybe they'd talk about it, but Buffy was still dreading it. How could she tell him that even after a year and a different boyfriend, a "growing year" she still didn't feel comfortable somehow? That their big love, which she had finally stopped clinging to, which she'd been honest about putting second, after her own needed time to grow up and become her own person- wasn't at the top of the list yet? If anything, "Buffy and Angel" was falling further and further from the top as new experiences made life muddier and muddier.

"You may greet him, but he is not able to reciprocate. He has burns and wounds and punctures. He sleeps but can't be woken, though technically he is undead. He'll heal with blood and time, they tell me that is the way with vampires." Illyria nodded.

Buffy's heart twisted. "He's okay though? Right? He's not dust? Because as long as he's not dust, he can come back from it." She rambled worriedly.

"He is in one piece. Mostly. One of his arms is more bandage than flesh, but he's in no danger of expiration."

Buffy looked at this odd woman and had to ask. "You remind me of someone. You're not- ex-demon, are you?"

"Ex- god. Thank you." Illyria replied coldly and pointed to a fold out couch in the darkest corner of the room. "He is there. And I shall sit here." She pointed to a couch near the stairs. "I am watching over him. Anne-"

"I have to go. I just told Charles I would get him some clothes, and I'd be back." Anne gave a frantic look at her watch. "I have to go, I've been gone almost an hour!" She flew up the stairs.

"Hospital?" Buffy knew this scenario so well. The humans got medical treatment from doctors, the oddities, vamps and demons, they had to be tended to by amateurs.

"Yes. He will not be able to wear the clothes for days, but it is Charles Gunn. He has pride and he likes to look 'tough'." Illyria's voice softened. "He is tough. For a mere mortal."

Buffy made a mental note to ask about the battle and its participants later. For now, she had become hyper focused on Angel as he let out a groan. "Painkillers do help vamps. You just have to give them big enough doses. Like_ huge_ doses. Spike once took a whole bottle of morphine and-" She stopped abruptly. Talking about Spike still hurt.

"Yes, he would do something like that." Illyria stated simply. "I've given him all the aspirin he can swallow, all that was in the medicine chest."

Buffy nodded and moved to the bedside softly, blinking once as she replayed the woman's words. It sounded like she knew Spike. Well, maybe she had. An ex-god and a vamp who's been around for almost two centuries might have crossed paths. Or maybe Angel talked about him. Maybe bad mouthed him. Buffy's lips tightened in anger, but then Angel let out a sharp cry and she forgot all about everything else but him.

"Hey." She murmured, sinking to his side. "Hey, Angel. It's me."

"Cordy?" Angel turned closed, contused eyes in her direction. "You're gone... Am I in heaven? Are we in heaven together?"

Buffy bit her lip and looked at Illyria, who regarded them with blank eyes. "It's Buffy." She whispered.

"Buffy's not in heaven. She came back. Cordy came back- just for a day, to help me. Always helped me stay with the mission." His voice was weak and dreamy.

"You love your mission, I know that." Buffy laughed softly under the words, and took his hand. He hissed. "Sorry! Sorry, charred hands, so sorry!"

Illyria rose and glowered, then sank back down.

"You have one hell of a watch dog." Buffy whispered, lips closer to his ear.

"Buffy?"

"Yeah, it's Buffy." She smiled and pressed her lips gently to an uninjured spot on his hairline, which took some effort to find. He was wrecked, this guy, and if the battle ended eight hours ago and he'd already had time to heal- she could only imagine what he'd looked like at first. "I came to help, but I got here too late."

" 'S okay. Nice to see you. Ha. Can't see." Angel laughed once and then shifted and groaned again. For a moment he lay still and Buffy held her breath, waiting for him to move again. "Cordelia?"

"Cordelia?" Buffy repeated slowly.

"His lost love. He misses her." Illyria drew her knees to her chin and rocked herself, the picture of confused pain, suddenly. "There is an ache..."

"Am I in heaven? I have a soul..." Angel whispered.

"Not yet. Someday, okay?" Buffy turned her attention back to him, stunned by what Illyria said. How had she not known that? And Cordelia had died? When had she died? And hello, what was that about love?

"Okay. We'll be together. I can talk to you then. You always wanted me to open up and share more. You know you talked enough for all of us."

Buffy had to smile. "Cordelia's trade mark. Even in the afterlife."

Angel's face contracted in pain, then winced into a smile. "Did you see him, Cordy? Our boy's all grown up. Did you see him fight, my boy? Helped him with his paper, too. You'd be proud of us..."

"She is. I am. We- we're all proud." Buffy kissed his forehead again, confused, but playing along, speaking soothingly. "You're going to get better and fight lots of good fights and do lots of things that make us proud."

Angel said nothing for a long time, and Buffy resisted the urge to poke him, make him talk, unable to shake the fear that he'd "died" on her. "Angel?"

"Cordy?"

"This is getting old." She mumbled, and then shrugged. What the hell? "Right here, Angel."

"You must not be too mad at me. Didn't call me dumb ass this time." He laughed again, a weak sputter.

"I would never call you-"

"You do. Always. When I need a kick. And you never gave up on me. I never gave up on you. Fred was right. Fred was right and we almost missed it. Kyrumption."

"Say what now?" Buffy lost her soft, sweet tone in confusion.

"When two champions meet and acknowledge their mutual destiny." His weak voice became even more faint. "You were my destiny. My field of battle isn't the same without you."

"That's romantic when you're Angel, huh?" Buffy lightly stroked his hair and clumps of singed locks came away. "Oh boy are you gonna be mad... glad you don't reflect right now..." She hastily patted the rest back in place as best she could.

"Buffy?" One puffed and blackened eye slit open and regarded her for a moment. "Hey! When did you get in?"

"Just now." Buffy smiled. "Came to say hi."

"Hi." He reached for her hand and lightly squeezed it as it lay on the sheet covering him. "Will you be in town long?"

"Couple days." She hadn't book ed her return ticket yet, but she would soon. If he didn't need her to help fight, and he had this incredibly devoted nurse and some friends to look after him, maybe she would just be in the way. "I'll see my dad."

"See Spike, too, would you? He's going to be pissed if I saw you and he didn't. I'd kinda like that actually... except no. No, I know how it feels to miss you..."

"Spike? See Spike?" Buffy's voice was shrill in the darkness and she stood rapidly. "Angel-"

"Shhh! Soft tones!" Illyria ordered and was suddenly by her side, fierce expression on her face.

"What does he mean? What do you mean 'see Spike'? Spike is dead." Buffy's voice cracked.

"He is a vampire, so of course he's dead."

"Ghost." Angel licked his bloodied, swollen lips.

"He's a ghost?" Buffy cried, not caring for "soft tones" in the wake of such startling news.

"Was." Angel and Illyria said as one.

"Was?"

"It is a long and complex story." Illyria said dismissively. "He can tell you if he likes." She walked away again, and resumed her huddled position.

"Angel, tell me everything, tell me what happened, tell me-"

"Cordy?"

Buffy felt a confused tear trickle out of the corner of her eye. Spike was alive. Angel was half-dead, Cordelia was all the way dead. Cordelia was dead and Angel missed her. She'd thought Spike was dead and she'd missed him so much. Now Angel was saying Spike missed _her._ None of this made sense. And when you're really out of it, dying, confused, badly injured and delirious- you focus on what matters most to you.

_It's not me anymore. I'm cool with that, I guess. He's not what matters most to me anymore, either._

"Cordy?"

"Shh, Baby. You tell me everything you wanted to say while I've been gone. I'll just listen."

Angel's hand tightened on hers. "I missed you so much. You don't know what it's like not having the one person you can just tell anything to not be there anymore."

_Sure I do._ Aloud she whispered. "We'll be together soon. For now, just talk all you want, and I'll listen, okay?"

He let out a deep, shuddering sigh, and a tiny smile managed to peek through the blood and bruises. "Okay..."

* * *

At the end of about two hours of confused outpourings of battle events, bragging about "our boy", and general confessions of love, grief, and friendship, Buffy felt emotionally saturated. She also didn't feel terribly guilty about no longer classifying Angel as the only love of her life, or the only one she wanted. It was confusing, there would always be that love for him. But_ in_ love? Not so much. It was alright, though. Angel was normally silent, closed over, all this passion brooding _for_ her and never talking about it _to_ her. Today, in this dark little basement, it was like he had life in him, openness, there was something like happiness, self-mocking, even a joking streak. Because as far as he knew- he was talking to "Cordy."

Cordelia really must have changed. Angel must have, too, for them to be best friends, to be so in love, but to stand so true to their mission. And he- he was happy with her. She sounded like she'd been happy with him, too, the way he talked about their pasts. In spite of all the pain- two people were happy in each other. They'd changed. Not the people Buffy remembered, thought she knew.

_I get that. Better than you know._ She wiped her eyes and kissed him on the forehead once more.

Finally, Buffy helped him drink from a mug with a straw, still talking to him, and then he passed out totally, and Illyria informed her it was time to depart.

"Yeah, he's crashed. I'll get going. I'll be back tomorrow, though. Will someone help take care of him?"

"I will do it. And for Charles Gunn. Anne will help, but even if she does not- I will do it. At least this once."

Buffy nodded. "Good. Good, you seem to- uh- really protect him." Illyria didn't acknowledge the comment, staring steadily at her, straight through her. It was unnerving. Buffy made as if to leave, hesitated, then asked, "Do you know where Spike might be?"

"He refused to be 'coddled'. He went to his own home to tend to his injuries. He said he would procure some human blood from the hospital to help him heal faster."

"Is he as bad as Angel?" She asked fearfully.

"No, he has a different method of fighting. Spike kills hard and ruthlessly, the quick dispatch and onto the next. He 'brawls', seems to like mobs."

"Yeah, he likes mobs." Buffy smiled to herself.

"Angel is more thorough and his kills are not as quick or clean."

"He used to play with his food. Hard habit to break." Buffy muttered.

"You are the girl they searched Rome for." Illyria stated bluntly.

"Searched Rome for?" Buffy's eyebrows smacked into her hairline.

"Recently. They both were seeking you to see which suitor you'd choose, except neither one seemed fully comfortable with the idea. They had a work related cause to go, but they were using subterfuge. They were competing for you." Illyria frowned. "I do not think Spike wanted to compete with Angel over this. He simply wanted to win."

"Win without competing? That doesn't sound like Spike. He's very competitive."

"Especially with Angel." Illyria smoothed Angel's brow in a tense, cautious gesture, as though it was unfamiliar to her. "However, in this case, I think he felt there was too much at stake for a childish competition."

"That _really_ doesn't sound like Spike."

"Maybe you don't know him as he is now."

Buffy swallowed. "No. I know him like he used to be. But I'd really, _really_ like the chance to meet this guy you're talking about. Can you please tell me where to find him?"

_To be continued..._


	2. Chapter 2

**Who We Used To Be**

**by Sweetprincipale**

_A short two or three chapter piece, just a tiny snippet of life, set after Angel season five, acting as if no comic series or novels occurred. Consider this an alternate universe, it'll be easier._

_Author's Note: I needed a break from novel length pieces, guys. Work on the big projects resumes this week._

_Dedicated to ginar369, Sirius120, cavemenftw,Alexiarrose, DLillith21,_ _omslagspapper, suchagleekx, mike13z50, jackiemack916, lynbie, Inazea, seapea, sbyamibakura, mercurystar69, Starscape91, and babe ruthless._

_Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine._

**Part II**

With a deep breath, Buffy forced her hand to move, more of scratch than a knock.

Spike flung open the door, sheer battle reflexes.

Stunned silence.

_She looks so amazing._

_ He looks so terrible._

_ I think I might cry, never thought I'd see her face to face again._

_ I think I might cry, I thought I'd never see him, ever, ever again._

_ Speak, man!_

_ Oh my God, talk! You came to talk, didn't you, so open your mouth and-_

"Heard you were looking for me?"

Buffy's insides enflamed, that same half careless tone, those watchful eyes, and the crooked, smug grin- without so much smug.

"Spike..." She croaked. _I should kill him. I should kiss him. I could compromise and kick his ass..._

"Uh- come in?" He stepped back, inclining his head in welcome, not knowing what to do._ I should explain. I should apologize. I should probably kick her before she punches my nose in, don't think it could survive after the war of last night._

She came in and they stared, in yet more silence. It began as extreme, tension filled quiet and then moved into that relaxed silence they'd once been able to share. "Hi." She murmured, arms crossing in front of herself to prevent her from doing anything rash, either of the violent or romantic nature.

"Hello, Luv. You look well." He mirrored her, for the same reasons.

Speaking ended there for a moment and was replaced by open staring, eyes drinking hungrily out of goblets of memories, good and bad- until the bad seemed to be swallowed up.

It was one of those very rare moments in the history of the world, actually. These moments weren't reserved for the great rulers or powerful magicians, not always, they could happen to anyone, but they were still rare. It was a moment when two very proud people, two very hot tempered people, were too grateful to care about anything except the fact that they got to see someone precious to them one more time.

The walls for both came down at once, at least the first layer.

"Are you gonna stare all night or are you going to hug me?" Buffy cried in the exact second that Spike flung opened his arms and said-

"Come here, for Christ's sake!"

With a laugh they enveloped each other into a tight hug, filled with a sudden wince on Spike's part. "Ribs! Ribs, Slayer, not so good on the ribs."

"Yeah, I know! What the hell happened to your beautiful face?" Buffy almost caressed his cheek, stepping back at the last minute, not out of reluctance to touch but out of reluctance to hurt him, since it looked so painful. One side looked raw but heeling, strips of pale skin knitting over crimson, like a burn and bite and a blunt object had attacked it all at once.

Spike didn't respond. Not the way she'd expected. He looked incredulous. "I- you think I have a beautiful face?"

Embarrassment and denial warred and then gave up and waved white flags. "Yes. Of course." She said softly. "Even right now, when it looks like someone tried to turn you into hamburger."

Spike touched his cheek and didn't wince even though it was like fire on his fingertips. "Is it bad? I can only go by Angel, and Angel looked like shit."

"It's half as bad as him. Which is still ridiculously bad." Buffy nodded and leaned against the wall of the small studio flat. "You- you're alive. Spike- dammit, if you weren't already hurt, I'd hit you!" But she only reached for his arm again, smile and scowl unable to decide who should take the lead, her mouth forming a strained grimace.

He had a similar expression. "I'd deserve it."

"No! No, you never deserved it, and I always did it! Okay, sometimes, yes, you really did deserve it, but not a lot of the time and I- I wished every day I could see you again so you'd know that- that I would change a lot of things if I could."

"Know what you mean." He smiled crookedly, not sure if he should reach for her or not. Was this a platonic thing or more? "About wishing you could change a lot of things. Whole lot of things." He shook his head hard, once like getting a bug off him. Didn't help if the nasties were _inside_ your head, though.

"Yeah..." There was another pause while they tried to find exactly the right words. Buffy laid odds it would be Spike who would find the right phrase to break the ice again, but it was her. "Well- um. I guess- we get part of our wish? We get to see each other again."

"Sure do." He smiled and relaxed his shoulders a little. Then a lot. "So bloody good to see you, Luv."

Her chest felt like someone pulled the rip cord and let her lungs expand. "You, too."

"Sit?" he pointed to the apartment's interior, kind of all lumped into one big mass of dining room, kitchen, and living room, offering her the whole of the place as an option.

"Sit." She agreed and took a seat on the couch, still watching him. He approached and she sprang up. Spike almost tripped over himself backing up, hands at chest level, palms out, placating._ Oh, God. Are we ever gonna be past thinking we'll hurt each other? Doesn't he remember how I fought for him when it counted? I know I remember all the moments that counted... how they wipe out all the bad ones until they're like the little gray smudges on old windows. Not important anymore, doesn't really make you see the scenery any less clearly. _"I just realized maybe I should let you rest. You went through hell-"

"Several times." He muttered and smirked. She smirked back before concluding,

"- maybe now isn't the best time to have company?"

He shrugged. The old Spike would have made a not entirely clean suggestion about being nursed back to health or the pleasantries of her companionship. He still wanted to- at first. But somehow being with her after thinking they'd just never meet up again, and that maybe he'd be better off that way- realizing he was wrong- made him honest. Honest and not very careful. "I want you to stay." It came out quietly but with no room for argument.

"Then I'll stay." But she didn't sit, she pushed past him, to the small, grubby white kitchen. "But you're going to keep drinking while you're being the host. Just sit down and- and did you take painkillers? Do you need bandaging? Burn cream, washcloths, bullets removed or-"

"Seems like old times." He laughed and held his ribs. "Nah, I think I just need to keep drinking the good stuff and stay out of the way of hellbeasts for a day." He sat down and something in his back made a horrible stretching sound. "Maybe a day, maybe two." His secondary burst of adrenaline was wearing off now that she was in and he could feel the pain coming back, but it didn't matter much.

"Yeah, well, most guys would consider dying to save the world enough evil fighting for a few dozen life times, but not you." She brought the jug over and a mug and pressed the cup into his hand, setting the jug on the floor beside him.

"Look who's talking." He scoffed. "To the stubborn ones." He toasted her.

"The stubborn ones." She raised an imaginary glass with his and tapped it with her knuckles.

"I have people food." Spike said after draining the mug in a single gulp. "Wheatabix and... duck sauce. They always give you ten packets of the stuff when you order in."

"Mmmm. Old people cereal and sticky orange Chinese ketchup. No."

"Aren't you hungry? I know you, you probably haven't remembered to eat since you heard the battle cry."

Buffy blushed. "I ate peanuts on the plane. And something rubbery. It was either calamari or fried forks with a buttery sauce."

"Did you fly on an Italian airline or an American one?"

"French."

"You ate snails, Pet."

Buffy paled, her skin matching her companion's. "Don't joke."

" 'M not."

"Oh... oh barf! Barf, ick, argh!" Buffy jumped up and gave a convulsive shake. "I don't eat insects!"

"You shouldn't. Damn nasty." He gave his own convulsive shudder.

"What did you do, eat them for a bet?" Buffy was in the kitchen again, slamming open the few cupboards, finally stopping when Spike whistled for her attention and pointed to his silver flask that rested atop a very much ripped duster beside a dented lighter.

"Not a bet. Exactly. More like a challenge." Spike drank heartily again, refilling his cup, watching her swig from his flask, make a face, and glare at him, like it was his fault whiskey overwhelmed the taste- and memory- of most unpleasant things.

Something in his tone made her stop her wincing and stare at him seriously. "What did you win if you ate these bugs?"

"I didn't eat 'em so much as let them run loose inside me for a few hours. Here, gimme that, would you?" He took the flask and fixed the creepy crawlies in his memory with a shot.

"Why would anyone ask you to do that?" Buffy looked at him in disgust.

"To see what a bloke'd be willing to pay for his crimes and get somethin' he wanted more than anything else. _Almost_ anything else." He didn't look at her, looked into his liquid meal instead.

_To get a soul. To feel true remorse. Because he already felt true remorse, otherwise why would he have gone to get it? So messed up. We're both so messed up. or we were. Maybe we're better now?_ "You never told me what you had to do." She whispered.

"I didn't want to bother you." He cocked his head. "Thought I'd lost the right."

"But you didn't! Not by the end- b-by the end you knew that, didn't you?" She pleaded with him to have known that, for her not to have let him down when he had tried, when he'd done the impossible.

"Oh, 'course, Slayer, I knew. I knew, sure, but things were a bit busy the last few months, weren't they? Didn't seem to have a lot of time to talk." _And it hurt. It still hurts. Poor lamb, she's still running to Spike for reassurance, still doesn't know how good she is._

She nodded and sat with him, closer this time, knee to knee, hands on the uninjured part of his slender, sinewy hands as they dangled across his lap. "Tell me now. Tell me- anything. Everything."

Spike tried not to look shocked but he failed. "Where's the girl who used to tell me to shut up or get dusty?" His joke fell flat.

"Probably with the guy who I didn't spend every day thinking about." She confessed softly. "The evil one, the one who used words to hurt."

"Oh. Him. Y'know how I said I was in hell? I left him there. That bastard deserved it." He gave a poisonous glare at something unseen, the dark part of him that had manipulated a scared girl because he was too selfish to love her without the push.

She let her touch become a little more insistent, kneading the hard cream skin. "Good. That's where I told that girl to go."

"What girl?"

"The one who hit you when you tried to explain ugly things that were still true."

They gave each other an uncomfortable smile, thoughts shared but unspoken.

How was this happening so quickly, diving into things that they'd danced around for years?

_I guess we learned the hard way not to wait so long._

Spike couldn't believe her hands were in his again. Unsure of what this would be, if anything, but not willing to lose the opportunity, he whispered something he'd always known. "You were always good. Wholly good, perfectly good, but you weren't always perfect, Luv. 'S okay."

"Thanks, Spike." The grip became a clutch. _I am not losing this. This is complicated, but it's comfortable. It's Spike. It's Spike and I lost him once. He stays in my life this time, even if he only wants to email once in awhile. I can't lose this again. _"So. Talk already." She murmured, voice strained around a sudden blockage.

He hesitated, only for one second. It was one of the few times in his unlife he hadn't moved with his instincts , which told him to bend her backwards and kiss the air out of her and promise he'd tell her everything, every second of this year and the time that seemed like eternity without her- but she had to stay with him every second until he was finished talking. So he'd just never stop.

"Spike, c'mon." _I always told him everything, and he listened. Then I freaked on him half the time he tried to tell me stuff. I was never a good friend. Strictly speaking, neither was he. But those jerks are gone now._ "People change. So, y'know, you can't go back," she shrugged slightly, "but you could change things moving ahead."

_Like being afraid to open up to you. Could change that. Could do it better, without the stinger underneath every comfort._ "Well... I got sucked into the goddamn amulet for a start. Popped out in front of Peaches in one of his almighty office meetings as a ghost."

"That's crazy!" Buffy screeched.

"I know!" He enthused back. "An undead ghost! I mean- mathematically speakin'-"

"Yeah, you should have been alive at that point. Two negatives make a positive." Buffy reasoned with supportive indignation.

"Guess the blokes upstairs are weak on figures." He rolled his eyes.

"But you're solid now." She looked puzzled, and ran her fingertips lightly over his wrists and then his arms, mindful of any injuries.

_Do that anymore an' I'll be rock._ Spike shifted away a bit. "How is that possible? I dunno, I think we killed the boy who rigged it up." He sighed and stretched, hissing as muscles that were torn popped and knit.

Buffy's insides went slightly gooey. Abs. Abs and cheekbones and remembering what was under the abs and- _Don't think about him that way! You love him, he's not a piece of meat._

Startled at her own thoughts, Buffy pulled away and clutched at her stomach as that hot, sweeping rush of realization filled it and made her wince in sudden knowledge. _I did love him. I still do. Better than ever, different than before. It's- nice this time. Not for me. For him. For us. Oh, damn it, but what if he has a "Cordy" of his own? People _do_ move on... I tried. I really suck at it._

"You alright?" Spike watched her twitch away and rub her abdomen worriedly. "The snails not sittin' well?" He began to rise, trying to remember if Lorne or Lindsay had ever left Tums around the flat.

"They were fine- until you reminded me." She winced again, this time more disgustedly.

"Maybe you're hungry for something actually edible." He snickered. "Wanna go get something?" He was the pinnacle of calm, although his borrowed blood seemed to race in his unmoving veins at the idea of squiring her out to dinner, even the most casual, most non-romantic of meals.

"No." Buffy shook her head and watched his eyes flicker, but not reveal pain. She'd seen that look a lot towards the end of Sunnydale. When he wanted something so much, and no longer felt he had the right to ask for it, no matter how many times she'd told him she still needed him. It was just neither one knew what role would fill that "need", what it was anymore, and in the war they were fighting, no one had time or strength to work it out. "I think you should rest."

"Right." _Let her go. Just- let it all go. You made it a year, you can make it a year and a day, then another, and another... until they all blur and you can pretend it doesn't feel like part of you is missing without her around._ He made as if to stand up, but she wasn't moving, just looking around, peering at the walls for something.

"Where's the phone?"

"The phone? You need a cab?"

"No, so we can order pizza and wings and you don't have to move around a lot. And me either. Do you know slayer strength is almost useless on jet lag?" She yawned and he beamed so wide a cut on his cheek reopened. "Oh, you're bleeding again!"

"Bugger it." He dug his cell phone out of the arm of the couch. "It's the first friendly fire I've had in days." He dialed and the smile wouldn't leave his face. "The usual?"

Buffy sank back, smiling as well. "Yeah. The usual."

* * *

They talked until sunrise with only a few breaks to get more food and make calls to check in on Gunn and Angel. They talked like nothing bad had ever happened between them, though plenty bad had happened _to_ them.

"-which is when Blue did this morphing flash of fire power, all wailing out beams of violet light, falling to her knees and clutching someone's severed head in her hand-"

"Severed?" Buffy listened raptly as Spike described the battle, popcorn shoving hungrily into her mouth, reaching for her soda, eyes unwavering as she listened to a master story teller.

"Yanked off. Anyway- don't know how she did it. She's all weepin' and wailin', rendin' the flippin' heavens themselves and screamin' 'I will avenge him! You took him from me!' and slammed her hands down an- whoooosh!" He rocked back, eyes closed and head whipped around. "Blue flames everywhere and the whole damn mess was swallowed up into 'em. Gone. Nothin' but a smokin' city center and us."

"Oh my God, she's got super magic." Buffy had new respect for Illyria. "Like Willow."

"Hm? She made the heavens split an' all?"

"When Tara died." Both faces shadowed, then cleared with tense, brave nods. "I guess we'll do that summer in Sunnydale next. It was- horrible. Really horrible."

" 'Cause of what I did." He accepted it.

"No. 'Cause you weren't there. Among another bajillion things."

Another brave smile and tense nod. _Moved on. We both have._ "Tell me, then." He nodded.

Buffy opened her mouth- and a huge yawn contracted her petite jaws. "Oh, wow. Sorry. We must have been talking for-"

"Half a day." He thought his heart might burst. The longest they'd ever talked, ever been alone together, left alone, in peace. Safe together, alone at last- and he was hearing himself say the most utterly contradictory, prissy little gentlemanly little phrase come out of his own betrayer mouth. "I should let you go get some rest. You must be all in." _No! Why the hell do you bring the manners out now, for Christ's sake? I'm gonna finish you off when she leaves, stake you good and proper, make it hurt, too, you bloody, _bloody_ ponce._

Buffy wanted to shake her head in vigorous denial, but instead a polite laugh was forced out. "_I'm_ all in? _You_ need a week in a coma to get over that battle." She clambered up and he hastily stood. _So much for honesty. I don't want to go. I'm tired, yeah, but... but I'm finally here. He's still here. It hurts so much less, just knowing he's still kicking around this planet, even I'm on the other side of it. _

_ But it's not dishonesty, it's just- not pushing. I guess we care too much to push. I think change is good. But right now some of the old jerky bastard who wanted to keep me next to him day and night could show up and I wouldn't really mind._

Spike followed her to the door, each step harder than the last. "Thanks, Luv." He whispered. "For lookin' me up an' actually findin' me. Always did beat me out in every fight."

"Sounds like we've been fighting on the same team for a while now. No more battles between us." She laughed and leaned forward, embracing him gently, not letting herself linger in case she did something monumentally stupid. Like kiss him all over his beaten up face and find all the other injuries too, and kiss very single one to make them better...

"Amen to that." He inhaled hard, drinking in her scent, and set his jaw. _This is better than I hoped for. Honestly. So why I am so torn up inside? This is good, it's a good start._

"Glad I got to see you one more time." She managed to sound semi-cheerful, even though her eyes were glimmering as she stepped into the entryway of the stairwell that led back up to street level.

Restraint got a powerful sucker punch and hope and bold stupidity forced themselves to the forefront of his mind. "Does it have to be just one more time?" He asked, more afraid not to try than to seem like a pushy jerk.

Her brave smile faltered, wavered, and got soggy. "Remember that night- in the basement?" She panted out a nervous laughing answer, shaking a little bit as she made her confession.

"The _last_ night in the basement?" He corrected.

"Yeah. That one." Buffy blushed slightly and shook her head. "I remember exactly what I said when you told me I could stay with you that night, downstairs..."

"I remember what I said, too. Didn't know what I woulda done if you'd gone up those stairs..." He took her hands, like he'd done all those months ago.

"Me either. And I said 'Oh, thank God" as soon as you said I could stay. I was so relieved I could just- crash. After long time of keeping it together, you and me- we might be beyond messed up and - we've had so much wrong between us-"

Spike knew where she was going, because he'd been there himself a dozen times that night. "But we were always just 'us'?" He concluded.

The barricade broke on self-control. Buffy launched into his arms, tears trickling, voice desperate, hands dug in to his back, sorry if it hurt but not able to make her fingers loosen. "Why the hell did you tell me I didn't mean it? I finally told you, and you said I didn't mean it!" She sobbed and pounded one fist weakly on his back. "It was _me_! It was always me, part of the us, and I meant it. I _mean_t it." The last words were a shaking half-wail.

He dug his own hands into her waist and put his cheek to hers, brushing it like a cat into a soft caress of a palm, needing the warmth. "I hurt you. I hurt all of you and you still believed in me- I wanted to complete the picture." He murmured into her hair, just as desperately. "I thought for once I could be your hero- be the good guy- like you deserve. Finish it. Save the world." He choked a little but moved on, now pushing her off enough to look into those eyes he saw whenever he closed his. "I was gonna die for you. You died for us once." His voice was more ragged. "I thought- thought I should pay you back an' not ask for anything from you. 'Cause you already gave so much."

She was touched and incredulous. Incredulity won out for a second as she wiped at her eyes. "Is that why you didn't tell me you were back? So I wouldn't have to 'owe' you something?"

He pursed his lips and quirked one brow. "Did I mention I was a ghost and stuck in that damned evil law firm? No touching anything, no goin' anywhere?"

"Well- yeah. But- but you could've dictated a letter or had someone hold the phone up to your ear or something!"

He paused. "I'm sorry." He finally said.

Buffy tried to speak several times but failed. "You only ever apologize to me?" She asked at last.

"Save most of 'em for you, yeah." He chuckled.

Buffy swallowed hard. "What if we- call it even? No more apologies needed and no more debts of heroism or - or any debts?"

His heart soared at the offer, before common sense and big, constant ugly stuck its domed forehead in. " I'd love that more than you know- but what about Angel?"

A look of pain passed over her face. "Did you know it's possible to fall in love with someone else even if you think you have some big, fated love?" She asked, looking into his eyes.

"I found out the hard way, Pet." He nodded at her. _As you well know._

Buffy got the hidden meaning and sighed. "He told me about Cordelia. Well- actually he sort of thought_ I_ was Cordelia. He was all loopy after you guys fought World War III."

Spike focused on the humor, not the pain. "He does tend to like to fight to the undead version of death with anything that'll have him." She nodded but didn't joke back. She wouldn't budge 'til he acknowledge that remark. He looked at her through half lowered lids. "So you know he loved her too?"

"I do now. Which is- mega weird... but- I get it. I mean Cordelia, the one I knew, was an annoying, evil mouthed bitch who had a heart the size of a teaspoon. But then that person changes and you see them in a new way." Buffy looked up at him and leaned in slightly, speaking more out of blind panic than sensibleness . _I can tell him. I _have_ to tell him._ "I don't want to keep having big, doomed love affairs, and I don't think-" she swallowed again, "that I want to choose the pain if I can help it."

"I'm not exactly pain free." He leaned down, "But I could be. I swear, I could be. 'Cept for a few sparring matches, Pet."

"I know you could be, if you wanted to be. Me, too. I'm- I'm not at the Cordelia-level of personality change. Still, I'm different than I was. For one thing- I'm not supernatural burden girl. Not the only one, anyway. Oh, and I admit that I have a- a sort of a kind of a thing for vampires. The ones with souls or at least really human personalities."

Thinking of her with that - that mystical Dracula wannabe made him ill, understanding new friendship could get knotted. "Do not talk about the Immortal to me, alright? Sick, preening bastard with his polyamorous- kinks." He seethed.

Buffy's eyebrows went up. "Funny, that was the reason I staked him a couple weeks ago." She said cooly. Spike stared, then swooped her up with a wild yell.

"That's the way, Slayer! Yeah! Wish I could've helped."

She smiled and giggled once. "You might've been _almost_ as lethal as I was. He asked if I ever 'shared' with my sister."

Spike's vampire face emerged in a split second and a roar of rage. "She's practically a child! Well, no, I s'pose she isn't but she's- she's- anyway! One of you is more than enough for any man, for any ten. Why the hell would he ever think he needed more when he's got the finest there is?" He slammed a fist into the wall, knocking a hole into it.

Buffy nodded. "I pointed out that part, well, without the self-promotion. Spike- I don't think I can ever be enough for Angel. He loves the big destiny package and I know as soon he's awake for more than ten minutes at a time he'll want to go put the city back together and usher in this glorious era of evil-free living." She wrinkled her nose and her smile was lopsided and sarcastic as she said, "That's so last year."

"Had enough of it, huh?" He returned the grin.

"Yes! Gimme a little piece of normal, please! No more training baby slayers, no more being mom, no more being the 'Chosen of Chosen-ville'. Not without anything else in my life. I just want a nice little apartment and a nice little job and a nice- a nice guy, who's not perfect, but who loves me. And who learned that hard way not to pull this noble bull shit about me loving him, and me needing the best."

Time took a hiatus, along with two brains.

_What did I just say? Oh God, did I mean it? Did I mean to tell him, even if I meant it?_

_ She- is she talking about being together? Properly together, an apartment, a nice guy, a guy who'd play at normal with his un-normal love of his life? _

_ Well, it's out there. Please, Spike- I could always count on you when the chips were really down. That's the only chip I've been holding onto..._

_ I don't care if I get hurt. If I don't risk it, I'll hurt worse. Maybe. Sod it..._

"Could I be that guy?" Spike knew exactly what she meant, who she was talking about, but he wanted to hear it spelled out, beautifully spelled out from her own sweet lips.

"There's a test you have to pass." Buffy told him gravely.

Spike nodded. "Walk through hell? I'll do it. I've seen it, I'll still do it. Tell me, Slayer, I'll do it." He declared passionately.

Buffy shook her head. "It's simpler than that. It's an oral exam."

Spike blinked. "You did tell me I was good at that. I jus'- I mean, you sure that's all you need? 'Cause I have an unfair advantage. I could do somethin' harder."

Buffy smacked him on the shoulder lightly. "It's a 'spoken' test. Gutterball."

"Ahh. Ask away. No questions about baseball stats or women's shoes." He pleaded.

"Nope. Baseball? Seriously? Never mind." She sighed. "One answer only. Listen carefully." She heaved in a deep breath and repeated something she said every night, every day, to herself, at least once. "Spike, I love you."

Spike could've made a joke. Was tempted for a split second, to say, "Thought you said this was a test, thought you meant it was hard." But it was hard, for them, especially for her, really. Love never had been given easily, to either of them, and to them as a combined force- never at the same time, and only when it was too late.

"Yeah, Luv. I know you do. An' I love you. Never, ever stopped."

Buffy let out a strangled, happy sound. "Don't joke."

"Never joked about that."

"I know!" Her voice was pinched and she kissed him once, lightly but hungrily, uncertain but unable to contain the urge anymore.

"Oh, I thought that would never, ever happen again." Spike kissed her back, more gently, but a little longer.

"What happens now?" Buffy asked after another moment of tense hugging and clutching each other, both waiting for something to scream into their lives and rip them apart. The way it always did.

"I think we call Dawn. Ask her if she'll set me on fire in my sleep if I tag along back to Italy."

"I don't want to go back. To stay for good, that is. Neither does she. She doesn't want to go to school in Italy, and she wants to be a Watcher. She wants to be with Giles in England, and apparently he can knows a realtor. So- so- um- I was gonna fly back to Italy, get my stuff, get Dawn, and go to England. At least I speak the language. Mostly. Do you know hard living in Italy has been? Oh, oh, oh- and do you know how_ different_ pizza is over there?"

Spike laughed. "Poor baby."

"Oh, seriously, Spike, you know I suck at languages."

"Well- I'll teach you proper English-English. If you tell me you love me again." He held out so much fear and hope in the mild banter. P_lease don't let it be a fluke... Please don't let me wake up if this is a dream. Or maybe I died and I'm in a different sort of hell. If I am- this is the part where they throw me back in the broiler and she walks away from me..._

It wasn't hard to admit, it was just so hard to say because of how strongly she meant it. "I love you. And there's no again. It was always. Always since I said it. Always since- I don't know, Spike, it's been a long time, it's been as close to always someone like me can get." She wiped suddenly at her eyes.

"Since I came back the last time?" He suggested, adding his own fingertips to her tearstained cheeks.

She nodded. Then shook her head. "No. Maybe since_ I_ came back the last time. You listened, and you were there, and you made me feel things before anyone else could even crack the surface. I hated it- hated you so much for making me fall in love and not want to go back to heaven. You made me hate you for feeling something wrong and dirty and knowing I didn't love you, but you-"

"I screwed it all up. We both did, but I did more, okay? An' you always can blame me, don't you know that? You don't have to think too hard, you just call me bad, an' we'll call you good." He stroked her hair urgently, making her meet his eyes and not look away. "That's what love's like, I can always be what you need, even the villain. God knows I earned it."

"It wasn't like that, though! We both made lots of bad choices. But you weren't_ trying_ to be bad, at least not some of the time. You never tried to be bad to me, Spike." She let out a long sigh. "I said whatever I said, and I didn't think too much about you. It just hurt to be alive, and you made the pain stop, you made me have something selfish, a stupid reason not to hate being back, no duty, no family just- something for myself." Her face was pained. "For some reason... I thought that was the worst thing I could do."

Spike hated that pained look. Always had, ever since he fell for her. "It doesn't matter about what I used to do or how you used to act about it. 'Cause you know what, Buffy? We changed. I think maybe we evened up."

"We're not who we used to be." She nodded slowly.

"Not entirely. But the way I feel about you-" He let out a slow, shaking mouthful of stolen air, cool on her hot skin, "it might be different, but it never _changed_. Still love you, still want you."

She closed the small space between them. "I know. But I think it'll feel different this time." Her hips met his as her mouth slowly did the same, hesitantly, once, twice, a third time, until they both relaxed and seemed to meld together.

"Feels wonderful." Spike took a pause to let her breathe, head and senses reeling. "Very different." _So that's what an 'in love' kiss feels like. Damn the other kind, give me those, always and forever._

"Mhmm. I think the rest is going to feel even better."

"The rest?" Mind whirled to a juddering halt. Buffy moved against him, a tight cuddle of her torso to his.

"Not right now, maybe, but- when you feel better or- or if you want to." She murmured, looking up at him.

"You want me to?" _We did plenty that final night in the basement, but not of it what you could call "sexual", more "comforting", certainly affectionate, holdin' each other. Maybe you'd call it mildly sensual. I know she forgives me, but- well, some things are unforgivable._

"I never made love to you before." She smiled up timidly, but with steady eyes. She knew him well enough to know she wouldn't be let down.

"That's all about to change." He kissed her once more and found all kinds of strength returning as he carried her to his room.

_ To be concluded..._


	3. Chapter 3

**Who We Used To Be**

**by Sweetprincipale**

_A short two or three chapter piece, just a tiny snippet of life, set after Angel season five, acting as if no comic series or novels occurred. Consider this an alternate universe, it'll be easier._

_Author's Note: I needed a break from novel length pieces, guys. Work on the big projects resumes this week. Throughout the piece the Moody Blues song "Nights in White Satin" and orated poem "Late Lament" are used. All rights and credit and grateful thanks go to them. If you haven't heard it, listen to it before or during this piece, it's beautiful. _

_Dedicated to ginar369, Sirius120, cavemenftw, Alexiarrose, DLillith21,_ _omslagspapper, suchagleekx, MMWillow13 , mike13z50, micmoc, MaireAilbhe, jackiemack916, lynbie, Babyfaith18, Inazea, seapea, sbyamibakura, mercurystar69, waddiwasiwitch, Starscape91, and babe ruthless._

_Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine._

**Part III**

Buffy managed to wriggle free from his arms in a few steps, not pulling away, just setting her feet on the floor. "You shouldn't carry me, you've been all beat up and you-"

"Have superhuman strength, plus a miracle just happened. I got to see you, never thought I would again." He laughed gently. Kissing continued, one hand each on the back of their partner's head, holding each other still, as if they were both afraid the other might vanish.

"You'll keep seeing me." Buffy's free hand traveled down to her waist band and she began to fumble and tug at her jeans. She was surprised when Spike's lips unglued from hers with a little wet pop and one of those sexy outward snorts of air he made, that primal sound she hadn't even known she'd missed. She opened her eyes,expecting to see the lustful fiendish expression she had once been so familiar with.

She was surprised. The eyes were lustful, but it was a steady, burning gaze. He tugged her hand up, placing it on his back as he pulled her closer, made them melt into each other.

"Missed you, Buffy."

"I missed you, too. I thought you were gone. Gone- gone. 'Never see you again' gone." Panic edged her kisses and caresses, her relocated hand made an effort to reach his zipper and again she was rerouted. "Spike!"

"There's no rush, is there, Luv?" _She's changed. It's not the same, get it over and get away from me, the reminder of her sin. Wasn't that way at the end, won't be that way now. She loves me. She does, and I should believe in her. Always have, always believed in her. _

Buffy blinked. "No..." She said slowly, puzzled expression on her face. "Except that we finally caught up to each other and I'm sure what I want. Which is a first for me. As in ever." She gave a self-deprecating roll of her eyes. "Unless _you're_ not sure?" Her voice was suddenly timid.

"NO! God no, no!" Spike's blue eyes bulged open and he clung to her with a steel grip.

"So what's the deal?" She looked half-amused, half-confused now. "You used to tear clothes off me. Ruined a lot of my stuff. All the time." She accused, but it was in a pouting, petulant voice, not genuinely angry.

"Well- if you're not goin' anywhere, and this is us, makin' love, I thought it ought to be a little bit- slower." He took her cheek back in his hand and led it to his. "The bloke that tore your things and knocked you down is gone. I don't like that kind of game anymore." He lipped her ear and blew a wisp of her hair from her face. "The girl that used to fight me an' fight herself before she'd let me near her- she doesn't live here anymore either, does she, Slayer?"

"No." Buffy smiled softly, eyes misting. "I'm all done fighting this particular battle. I surrender."

Music to his vice-craving ears. Yet, he didn't want her to give in as in give _up_. "Ah-ah, Luv." He corrected. " 'S mutual. Call it a truce. Call it a permanent one."

"Just call it love." Buffy rubbed her cheek to his jaw and then let herself arch up and back, falling into his arms and feeling relief flood through her. _I made the right choice. Finally. And yeah, it is right, totally right. I loved him before, but maybe I couldn't really have been with him before. I wouldn't have let myself, I would have fought myself and fought him, and he- he just kept getting pushed farther and farther until snappage happened. God, I'm so stupid. But I'm finally wising up..._

"Love. Love is- different." His chest made all the motions of breathing, pumping up and down as he forcibly expelled the air that he kept inhaling, pulling her scent inside himself as they nuzzled and tussled over each other, kissing and touching in a way that felt foreign yet familiar. Like a town you visited once a long while ago, vaguely remember the street signs and the scenery, but it's never been home before. If this was love, then he was finally home.

But _making_ love had never happened. That had to be a joint effort. They'd shagged, they'd used and abused, and they'd comforted, and _he'd_ made love. It'd never been properly returned. Then he'd tried to force that love to come out of hiding and- he gave a shudder and closed his bruised eyes hard. _That monster died, and she bloody well knows it. She knew it before I did..._

"Alright?" He asked hoarsely.

"Better." She answered in that same constricted tone as her fingers made their way under his shirt. She traced upward and he moaned, letting his own hands finally start heading for skin. "Scars are all gone." The ones the First had carved into him, she didn't know if they'd stay or not, maybe not visible as white healing on white, but maybe the type to leave marks you could feel. She could tell that they hadn't now.

"Made of strong stuff." He grinned and traced her forehead, just over the eye, where she always seemed to get gashed in battle. "You never scar."

"Not the type you can see."

They exchanged a rueful smile, and her outer shirt dropped to the floor to reveal a clinging white shirt. "Reckon you've got plenty no one else will ever know about."

"You have the same thing, all the inner turmoil and- holy cow, Spike, look at these!" Buffy'd managed to roll his black tee half way up and stopped, staring openly. "This is with a couple gallons of _human_ blood in you? God!"

Spike looked down at himself. One side was a black and bruised mass of knitting ribs and the rest was fading claw and slash wounds. "We can't all be super gal, Luv." He teased, and made as if to cover himself back up, not knowing why, she'd seen worse, done some damage to him herself, before and after they became involved physically. "Be good in a few days."

"I can help." Buffy halted his hands, and pressed a palm to his ivory chest, head sliding down, lips grazing gently along the marred surface. "Kisses make it better. Mom said so." She murmured, eyes holding a small spark of playfulness, the rest of her face serious and deeply intent.

"Well, if Joyce said so, it must be true. She was a hell of a woman, Luv, never argue with her." Spike stared at the scene before him, Buffy sinking to her knees in front of him, hands tender, lips soft. Even when she'd performed her infrequent acts of "lip service" for him before, it hadn't been like this, it had been vigorous to the point of violence, passion that wasn't human, that was more like an animal._ It was my fault. I told her she came back wrong, came back less. Should have told her she came back more, came back like a guardian angel for this world, for her friends, and that I would fight until she was ready to pick up the sword. Why the bleedin' hell was I so stupid? _

"We were really dumb, huh?" Buffy's thumb popped open his fly button as she continued lightly feathering kisses on all the bruises and wounds- and there were plenty, but they couldn't take away his beauty. When you think you'll never see someone again, if they come back at all, even in pieces, they're a welcome sight, nothing can detract from that kind of beauty.

"What?" Spike made a strangled noise as she touched him on the short and curlies, running her fingers lightly through, working down. He was unable to think clearly because of that, but also because her last words had scared him well and truly. _She can read minds now? I was just sayin' I'd been a bloody stupid fool and now she says we were dumb. Oh, shit, she's gone psychic- now wait. That's absurd, if she'd gone psychic she would've known where I was an' all. _

"Am I hurting you?" Buffy was hastily rising, catching the sudden strain in his body.

"No! Christ no, the very opposite." He laughed weakly. "You just said somethin' about our intelligence levels...?" He led.

Buffy shrugged and flushed slightly. "I was thinking about all the times we were together- and we didn't do it right. I'm sorry."

"What've you got to be sorry for? We weren't the same people then, didn't realize what we had in front of us." He shook his head to dispel her doubts.

"You always did." She whispered, eyes absolute, sure on his own.

"No. Wish it was true, but it isn't."

"You always knew about me."

"No." He insisted. "Knew about pieces, and knew about myself. Screwed up plenty. But I won't screw up this time, Buffy." He swore.

"I won't either. Well- not a lot. Not to the point of making you think I don't love you when I do!" She wiped at her eyes suddenly with her balled fist. "I'll make sure I tell you every day!"

Spike's eyes widened. "Seein' me every day, that the plan?"

Buffy didn't hesitate. "We didn't come back from the dead and get our heads out of our butts to not learn anything. If you're not ready to- be around in person all the time, I can email you. I can call you. You do have email, right?" She asked nervously.

He laughed once. "I think so. Yeah, I had an account set up for me by one of the local good guy team, but I dunno what I do with all the little pictures at the top, to be honest."

Buffy laughed and sighed. "I can teach you. Willow taught me a lot of computer-y things this year. Email is cake. Ooh, we can video chat!"

"Pointless." Spike teased his fingers along her waistband. "When you could just shout down the hall. Or- walk next door." _Not sure how much of the conversation about a nice little flat and nice guy was meant to be a unit. Plus, Dawn's gonna take some convincing. _"I'll be close by."

"Yeah. I was hoping close by meant close by as in same bedroom." Buffy joined his hand and slid her slim legged pants over his hips and to the ground.

"Brilliant." He kept his eyes from peering down to those slender legs, he didn't want to distract himself too much. "Only- what about the Little Bit? I mean, Dawn." _Don't call her Little Bit anymore. She didn't exactly make you feel welcome, and had no reason to. Hell, she didn't even make Buffy welcome, it was all such a bloody shambles, at the end- it was jus' Slayer an' me. I should have let her know I loved her, should have told her I believed her. Glad the stupid part of the pride is gone. Oh, hell, never had any pride when it came to her, 'cept of course when it mucked things up..._

Buffy's face was serious, but not concerned. "Dawn had to put up with the Immortal Idiot for a few months. She would consider _anyone_ an improvement over him."

"Golly, thanks." Spike muttered sarcastically.

"Not to mention she must have filled about five notebooks about you. She and Andrew lead classes in Spike-ology with anyone who'll listen. About how you can go as deep into bad as a demon can go- and climb back out to save the world and sacrifice yourself for people who don't deserve your help, how you can fight for a soul, how you can 'Be like Spike'. The way they tell it, not my words. Although they kinda have a point."

Spike looked stunned. "She- forgives me?"

"For some things? Not yet. For not letting you have a real chance to make up for what you did wrong? Hell, yes." Buffy looked at him as she guided their hands together, to her shirt, up and over her head. "She and I talk a lot more. Everything's different and- nothing is the same in Italy. We hang together a lot. She told me she wished she'd been more like me." Buffy blinked and beamed suddenly. "It only takes dying, almost dying, and the world almost ending to get my sister to compliment me."

"She's stubborn. Must be a genetic trait..." Spike dodged a teasing blow and sank his forehead wonderingly into the small hills of sun kissed cleavage she presented him.

"Or maybe she watched you too much." Buffy countered, sinking to the bed and taking him with her.

"Oh, God." Spike panted. _This is it. Bed. Me. Her. Almost nudity. Thank You, PTB. I'll overlook the sucked into hell and bein' made a ghost crap, just for this moment. A few more moments like this would be even better, wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more..._

Buffy sighed and reclined fully, watching her broken lover, her angel from the underworld, climbing over her, gently, slowly, not onto her, just poised to do so. "It doesn't matter where she got it from, it just matters that she told me she missed you and she wished you were back. That she hoped you were in heaven. And she told me you and Willow - okay and me- were her heroes. For different reasons though."

"I'm her hero?" Spike's eyes almost dropped cleanly from his head.

"Yes. Because you taught her people could be as bad as you can get, but still do the right thing when it counts. If you love someone enough. She was watching me do the whole 'with a guy, but not in love' thing. Again. She hated the Immortal. And the name. Why do all the guys I like have these fancy ass names?"

"I'm sorry, what was that, _Slayer_?" Spike poked the soft hollow of her stomach with a prodding finger. "Dawn's smart. The guy was an ass. Knew him a century ago, and he was an ass then." He growled.

"Don't critique the dead and dusty- you weren't making the healthy relationship top ten list, either." His eyes flickered guiltily and she amended. "Nice we get to try again, right?"

"You do really want this? Not gonna come to me, find me, and run?" He cursed himself for asking, for watching her eyes burn in anger and then pain.

"I don't do that now." She whispered tightly.

"And I don't give a girl reasons to run." He shared the culpability for the past faults.

"I love you. I loved who you were- maybe not all the time, or maybe not the right way but-"

"I know, Luv, you did tell me." He soothed.

She nodded but pushed past his comfort with a determined look on her pretty face. "And I love who you are even more, I can tell. You changed, but I did, too. I can love better now, Spike."

"I think I can give you somethin' better to love, as well." He let himself drop inch by inch, until torsos met. Funny how when she was his cushion, his ribs felt not even the slightest twinge.

"I just want to be with you, this you, this new guy who's made up of all the old things I missed and totally added great new things I wanted and already love." She ran her fingers through his platinum hair, not gelled, instead disheveled, and a large streak of it missing on the side of his injured cheek. "You feel okay?"_ Maybe we should wait. He's all broken and bruised and I haven't slept in two days and I probably totally have popcorn stuck in my teeth. Oh God. What if I have popcorn stuck in my teeth?_

"I'm wonderful. You feel even feel better than I remember, an' that was as good as it gets." _But she never held still long enough for me to feel this. Maybe that's it. Or maybe it's better because she's- oh that's what it is. _For the first time in their entanglements, she was holding him as much as was holding on to her. _This is going to be bloody fantastic._

* * *

The tentative kissing and caressing turned to full body contact kissing and caressing in the already dim room. But who needs lights when you can see in the dark? Still, as her bra flew off over his sinewy back with a soft giggle and kiss, Spike wished the accouterments of the place were a bit better. He had some dosh now, a little bit from his Wolfram and Hart "expense account" but he'd never bothered to do anything with the place. He had said to Lindsay straight off upon seein' the crummy little digs that he needed a better bed, right off the bat in fact, first thing he said. Lindsay'd looked at him with those oddly knowing eyes, right before he'd told him he wouldn't be needing it anytime soon. Bastard'd been right. Dead now, evil and sneaky, but right. Spike shrugged internally. He could relate to that.

The bed was a cheap, old, metal framed monstrosity, barely a double, and they used to cut a wide swathe. Of course, they used to be trying to wear each other out to the point of exhaustion and possible injury. He supposed, really, that it didn't matter, but he spoke his wish-slash-apology out loud anyway,

"Sorry the furnishin's aren't a bit better, Slayer." He pinned her softly on her side, rolled her to him, naked bodies moving together, hands not seeking out the private places on each other just yet. Well- he cupped one peachy globe, not seeking them out _much_.

"This is fine!" She protested hotly, licking a trail from his lobe to the apex of sternum, wondering why she'd never noticed, not just with him, but with anybody, how you could love a taste and scent and feel of a person enough that you quite literally could devour them.

"Fine for me, not like I used it much. Never used it with someone else." He wanted her to know that. Okay, he'd shagged Harm for all of three minutes on a desk, thinking only of Buffy the whole time before they got interrupted- and he'd been relieved to be out of the situation actually. But this bed was proof that he'd used it as a place to kip, infrequently at that, and nothing more.

Buffy scowled between nibbles of his skin."Wish I could say the same about_ my_ bed. The one I got this year, I mean. Well, I'm not taking it on a plane to London with me. We'll get brand new stuff, for all of us." She declared firmly.

_We'll get a new bed. We'll have an apartment. _Suddenly the furniture seemed just find, a rough cut starting place, but any place to start over was good. Spike glowed and reached to the floor beside them. He fumbled around, old cigarette wrappers and an ash tray, a bottle of Scotch, now empty, and -ah ha. His fingers closed around a small remote. "The furniture might be utter crap, but I do have a bloody good sound system. Oh, an' a game system, Luv, imagine that. Rehab for when my hands got cut off. So while we were out shoppin' in the electronics store I got the new-"

"What?" Buffy's screech made the metal rungs of the headboard ring faintly. "Your hands got-"

"They work! They work, got 'em sewed back on!" He hastily reassured, stroking her with his perfectly in order fingertips.

Buffy let out a soft mewl of desperation. "You could have been killed! I thought this whole time you were dead, and here you were still in as much danger as ever." She felt sick. But you can't change what you didn't know, can you? "We're _not_ doing that again." She hissed fiercely.

"You were in just as much danger, an' I thought of you every damn minute, no matter where I was, hell, oblivion, trapped in that law firm... You're right. We're not doin' that again, that bein' apart gig." He swept her hair back from her face and looked into her eyes, hoping she could see honesty in the gray lighting. "You have to know I wanted to find you the second I came back. You were the first thing I asked about. Ask Peaches- when he's less out of his skull- and he'll tell you."

"I don't have to ask. I believe you. You were on my mind every day, too. Maybe not every minute, but I thought I had to let you go. 'Cause you weren't here anymore." She swallowed painfully. "No wonder it never worked all the way. You were waiting for me to find you."

"I was workin' up my courage to come get you." He added.

"As long as we ended up together- Spike- we could be in a pit somewhere, I really don't care. I'm just happy we found each other again."

He kissed her with deep conviction, forgetting about everything else and his little attempts to add to the night's atmosphere. It was her and him. It was perfection. Groaning in bliss as her leg worked over his hip, letting him feel that wet female silk along his thigh, he gripped the remote and chucked it to the floor. Spike hit the play button as it fell free, and the stereo began to blare out his Moody Blues disc.

Buffy gave him a quizzical, startled look in the middle of their deepening kiss. "This sounds surprisingly not like screaming punk metal." She half-laughed.

"I was s'posed to die the other night. I decided to listen to somethin' -poetic for my last night on earth. Since I didn't have you to hold onto." It was the truth. Just not all of it. He flushed on the inside, even if it was not reflected in his pallor. _I'll tell her I gave a poetry reading. Later. Much later. No need to tell her I have this looped not just for the music but so I could hear "Late Lament" read every six minutes until I got my courage up to read my own works. Probably won't tell her that the twentieth run through was what it took to get me to the club. I might not mention the fact that I need most of a bottle of Jack to get from the club bar to the stage._

"I'm sorry I wasn't there. I'll be there for the next time. There _will_ be a next time." They shared the wry smiles of ones who know they're screwed in terms of facing apocalypses. "And I_ will_ be with you."

"I know you will. 'Cause I'll be by your side, Luv, 'til I kick it for real."

They shared a somber smile, acknowledgement of their vow. Their kisses resumed, deepened, and the positions changed, Buffy pulling him over top of her, legs bending slightly at the knees as her heart rate sped up. "Deal. In the mean time, I do like the music. It's pretty." She praised the song. "It feels like good love-making music to me."

It had felt like good last night of your life music less that two days ago. Now it was good love-making music. Oh well. Spike reflected that if he was given the option, that was what he'd choose to do on his last night, on every night. Be with her.

"I do love you." He shifted up, almost home.

"Love you, too." That was so easy to say. _Now_. Oh well, if it had been easy to come by, she wouldn't have appreciated it.

He was frozen, just letting the moment happen, feeling her pulse race under his fingers, hear the blood whooshing through her heart, faster it flew, the closer he got.

Buffy was the one who couldn't take the suspense any more. Sure there could be more foreplay. There could be about a thousand things they used to do or had never tried, but it wasn't going to be like that tonight. Tonight he was broken outside and healing inside, and she was finally feeling like her heart wasn't missing a crucial piece. All that had to happen was for the two of them to slide together, and suddenly- all the old pain wouldn't just be ignored, it was going to get washed away.

She moved under him, fluid, flowing, lost in smooth white sheets, eyes adoring every inch of him and body bringing them together, a carnal bridge to close the gap between past and present- and give them a future.

_Nights in white satin,_

_Never reaching the end_

"I could do this forever." Spike found himself reborn in her touch. When she connected them, everything changed. Pain melted. Happiness came back. He remembered what it was like- really like, to be simply happy. _She loves me._

"We will. Now that I know you're here. I would never have stayed away if I'd known..." It wasn't an accusation, it was a plea for him to understand. She wasn't condemning him for not finding her, not right now, she was begging him to know that the only reason she'd been away from him for a year was not that she didn't believe in him, didn't love him, but that she hadn't known finding him was even an option.

_Letters I've written,_

_Never meaning to send_

"I tried to tell you, tried to find you at the end..." He reminded her, kissing away her self-punishing tone. "Look." He reached past her head, under the pillow- the side he didn't lie on when he slept. _Her_ side. His fist came out with a clutch of looseleaf. Every one began the same._ Buffy..._ "I wrote you. Least once a week. Soon as I could hold a pen... Just never was brave enough to send 'em."

"I'll read them now."

"Yeah. Only- not _right_ now."

"Agreed."

* * *

_Beauty I'd always missed_

_With these eyes before_

This was what she'd been missing out on? Buffy didn't know sex felt like this. That it wasn't a battle of wills or an endurance test, or some pleasure seeking, mind-numbing escape. It was this beautiful, amazing thing. The person you love, the person who is your other half- they're connected to you, body and soul. Suddenly- you're whole again. Suddenly you knew you were not whole before.

_Just what the truth is_

_I can't say anymore._

He picked up the pace, unable to go slow and steady anymore, he had to pour out some of that missing heat he'd finally found. Not rough. Just thorough. "Fooled ourselves before." He hissed, forehead to hers, both of their eyes closed, and jaws locked tight. What they'd shared was so flawed, this, _this_ was the real deal. His tongue roughly darted out and claimed her lips, surprised and pleased when her blunt teeth snared his lower lip in a passionate, loving kiss and released it. They didn't fight themselves in their union anymore.

"Mmhmm." She exhaled sharply as her thighs were brought up suddenly, up high, over his waist, resting on his battered ribs. Head down he worked inside her, pink folds split around a hard ice white shaft, her pink fingertip indenting ivory forearms as she clung to him. "Don't hurt yourself."

"I just don't wanna hurt you." He pleaded. "I thought you knew that night- that I didn't want to hurt you that I wanted to show you- dammit, how could we keep getting things wrong? Me, that time, just me."

"I forgive that, and I understand it. You might have been trying to show me the wrong way, but I was the one who pushed you away to the point you couldn't use words anymore." Bad images clouded both their minds, and the rocking motion, so deep, so pleasurable stopped. "You can talk to me now..." Her voice was shaky, not from fear of him, from fear of old mistakes.

"Never gonna stop talking to you. Or telling you. The only thing I ever wanted you to hear. I love you, Buffy."

"I love you, too." Motion resumed, this time, flying, soaring, rising with the music.

_'Cause I love you,_

_Yes, I love you,_

_Oh, how, I love you._

* * *

_Gazing at people,_

_Some hand in hand_

"What are you doing in bed with me?" Angel's voice was mystified but lucid, and his eyes were able to open almost normally.

"Shh. I am giving us 'comfort'." Illyria pressed her arms around him with cool deliberation.

"Why- what- what's happening?" Angel looked around a place he didn't recognize, and at himself. He was in horrible shape. The only one with him was Illyria. Illyria, who was holding him. That was completely unprecedented. "Ummm. Um. Comfort is good. But- uh- why?"

"Because we survived. Wesley did not. Your Cordelia does not."

The words pained his heart. A jolt of realization attacked him as his mind slowly fought for clarity. "Spike! Gunn?" He almost sat up but his body wouldn't allow it yet. Neither would the blue haired creature who fixed him with her oddly frozen eyes.

"They live yet. Spike is being cared for, such care as he needs." _Care for this 'heartache', as he called it. Buffy cares for him. _

"Gunn? He had bites, did they-"

"Had he died, yes, perhaps he'd be demon in form. But he hadn't died and he refuses to. Anne says he is a fighter."

"We're at Anne's?"

"Yes."

Angel spoke carefully now. He had hazy recollections of the world going up in blue flames when Illyria felt true pain, true loss for the first time. He didn't want to be on the receiving end of that. "Great. About the them. So- you and me and comforting?" He asked cautiously.

Illyria frowned. "Spike said we both hurt, and that in grief, I was to put my arms around you and it would help us both."

"You listened to _Spike_?" Angel's eyes managed to open fully, if only for a second.

Illyria glared. "I do not feel this human pain as much when I care for you. I think Spike knows of what he speaks."

_Just what I'm going through_

_They can't understand._

Angel let himself be taken over by the haze of pain and sleepiness again. He had dim recollections of Cordy listening to him, stroking his hand, kissing his brow. But Cordy was dead. It must have been her spirit, visiting once more. Poor Spike. He didn't have a Cordelia to visit his dreams. He had Buffy, but Buffy- Buffy never loved him. But at that moment he suddenly knew with certainty that Spike loved her, in whatever twisted, sick way he did. And he knew Spike cursed the day he'd failed to win her heart. "Yeah. Spike knows of what he speaks. For once."

* * *

_Some try to tell me_

_Thoughts they cannot defend_

Buffy let herself glide with him, in absolute abandon. Blood seeped from his wounds, sweat drenched her, and they were staining the bed with their combined juices. She'd felt him release once, without missing a beat, in mid thrust, just saw and felt him tighten and burst, and keep moving. Stamina boy. She didn't care about the mess, she wanted it. Wanted to be making love to him all night and all day and all of her life. If someone told her that she needed to stop and do it differently, if someone told her it was wrong- she was going to slay them. Problem solved.

Spike didn't know what was happening at first, when she curled into a little half-tuck under him, but then he felt the full body contortion, and her scream split the air. The scream was one long word- his name. Tears prickled his eyelids but he blinked them away. The convulsing was continuing, from the pelvis down anyway. So wet she was drenching him, and he'd already drenched her, from the inside out. "Easy, Luv, easy. No need to push yourself, or me." He soothed, momentarily concerned her old style of lovemaking was coming back to the forefront.

"I'm not pushing myself." She gasped in pleasure, green eyes sparkling with lust and love and heat. "This part? This part was always real. With you- whatever else was bad, the sex was always amazing."

"You were some wild thing, some amazing, beautiful firebird..." He gasped in awe. Even underneath, she managed to look like she was in control, the goddess of all things beautiful and untamed.

"That part didn't change. It just was waiting for you to unleash it again. I'm always your firebird." She whispered in amazement at herself, at him, the things he said. _I should have let him talk. He might have told me ugly truths, but he would have told me these beautiful things before. I am beautiful and I am in love and this is making love. It's just making it the way we want- beautifully, but passionately. Two wild things, finally free._

_Just what you want to be_

_You will be in the end_

"God, woman, I love you."

She blushed, sparkles in her eyes. "Call me a firebird again?"

"I'll call you every sweet thing I ever wanted to call you, beautiful girl. You'll be around to listen."

_And I love you,_

_Yes, I love you,_

_Oh, how, I love you._

_Oh, how, I love you._

* * *

_Nights in white satin,_

_Never reaching the end_

Angel felt the flutter of something soft and white against his face. He thought he did. His eyes opened. Illyria slept beside him, or at least laid there, her eyes half closed, staring at something inside herself as if she were trying to solve a very complex problem in her head. He wearily shut his eyes again, and this time the white fluttering thing remained, and dragged him in.

"Let me go!" He cried in his tortured, healing mind.

"No, dumbass, I'm your guide!" Cordelia, wrapped in something white and flowing, latched onto his hand, his metaphysical one, and tugged. "If I let go, the Powers are so totally going to pack me off to the B-list heavenly realms, and who wants that?"

Angel clasped it and pulled her into a hard hug, lifting her off the ground. "You're back! I knew you were here to see me, I felt you and I-"

"I wasn't here. That was Buffy." Cordelia said gently.

"Buffy was here?"

"Yeah. You thought she was me."

"I- I'm sorry, I had this big fight and-"

"Yeah, we saw. You and the Angel Inc. groupies saved the world. And blew out an entire evil dimension plus six evil earthly conglomerates. We're so proud. _I'm_ so proud." She stopped and kissed him, leaving him speechless, before leading him forward some more, into the light.

"Where are we going?" Angel finally asked.

"Some people want to see you." Cordelia said mysteriously.

_Letters I've written,_

_Never meaning to send._

"There's the man himself!" Doyle sprang out of a seat in what looked like a small living room in anyone's suburban home.

"Missed you somethin' awful!" Fred bounded up to him, arms out.

"Have a seat, Angel." A man he didn't recognize asked him to sit.

Angel disobeyed. "What's going on? I can't be in heaven, I'm not dead! I can't be in heaven, Wes isn't here! And- and your soul, Fred, they said it would be destroyed by being taken over by-"

"Oh, don't you worry about what they tell you down there. We're here. We're all here, an' Wesley's gonna be here soon."

"Sit, please, Angel man." Doyle hugged him briefly. "Your hard to get in touch with, I'll tell you that. So much goin' on around you a guy can't even get in a little spiritually significant dream!"

"No! I won't sit until I know this isn't some trick, or some trap."

"Does this look like a trick?" Cordy held out something small and red, a suspended drop of blood floating in the ether as if by magic.

"Uh- yeah. Kind of." Angel stared at it.

"Miss Chase. Let me explain."

"You can try. He has a following directions problem." Cordelia sat down and looked at him with impatient amusement. "I missed that about you." She whispered softly.

_Beauty I'd always missed_

_With these eyes before,_

_Just what the truth is_

_I can't say anymore._

Angel's throat tightened. "What's going on?" He asked the unfamiliar face.

"You didn't wait for destiny to find you. You went to find it. You fully expected to die and you accepted your fate with a willingness and humility that is refreshing."

"And so not like him." Cordelia mumbled under her breath.

"Hey!" Angel turned to her with a little frown.

"For this action, we grant you the fulfillment of your prophecy."

Angel's heart rose in his chest, like helium feeling it with gladness- and then it halted. "But- I'm supposed to have it? 'Cause there uh- there's two vampires with souls now." He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "Who do I see about that? Isn't that kind of like a- a -duplicate billing issue or something? I thought there was supposed to be just one of us with a soul."

The man stared at him in silence. Fred pointed hurriedly to a seat and Angel backed away. "The prophecy is yours until the end of your mortal life. When you accept the Shanshu, it goes into effect immediately. At the end of its use, it is returned."

Angel sprang forward and grabbed at the red droplet. He paused before his fingers could wrap around it, then looked at Cordy, eyes brimming suddenly. "Cordy- Cordy, I'll be able to come here sooner. Not- not soon maybe, but not centuries and centuries. Fifty years, sixty tops and I'll be back with you."

Cordelia nodded, throat tight. "I know. We're going to the same place. I know that."

"Would you- would you wait that long?" He asked fearfully.

Cordelia glared and then said in a harsh voice, "Of course! If this wasn't heaven, Buster, I'd be putting your Chippendale worthy ass in a sling for even suggesting that I..."

"Down girl." Doyle eased her back. "I think she's tryin' to say she loves ya, man. An' she'll wait as long as it takes."

"Thank you. Thank you." Angel hesitated, then sprang forward, and captured her in a long, searing kiss, decidedly not heavenly, full of carnality, but he was figuring it had to last a few decades.

"Oh, hello Angel Cakes, come to Mama!" Cordelia gasped and let herself stagger against his chest as he pulled away.

"Um. We can- I mean- there isn't some rule- in heaven, can you and I-"

"Make love until our little feathery wings fall off? You betcha." Cordelia smiled and blinked suddenly. "I love you. I'll wait."

"I love you, too. And I'll wait too. For you, til we're together again."

_'Cause I love you,_

_Yes, I love you,_

_Oh, how, I love you._

_Oh, how, I love you._

"Not to break up the mood, an' I know it's rude and all, but what about Buffy?" Fred asked timidly. "She's still alive down there..."

"She needed more time to bake. And I just figured out I don't really want cookies. I like cheesecake a lot better." Angel earned himself a playful smack from Cordy ad he held her hand, unwilling to let go until he had to.

"Uh- someone wanna explain that to me? I've been out of the Angel club the longest." Doyle looked confused.

"No, that's a confusing thing for me, too." Fred assured him.

"For all of us." Cordelia looked at him nervously, as if afraid maybe his injuries had damaged his brain permanently.

"I love you. I love Buffy, but- not like that- anymore. I need a partner. I need my Cordy." Angel slowly turned to her and to the man who seemed to be appointed his judge. "If I- if I gave this thing up, to Spike for example- would you give Cordy back to me? Would you want to go?" He asked the man and Cordy in turn.

"You would do that?" The anonymous figure asked.

"She's my friend. She's my partner. My other half." Angel whispered.

"I don't think it works like that." Cordy said in a clogged voice. "But- I'll go where you are."

Their judge stared. "I will speak to you about it at another time. Soon. Take the gift, Angel. Swallow it whole. The rest resolves itself."

The metaphysical dwelling seemed to spin and dissolve, and Angel found himself crashing back to the bed, waking up with a start. "Cordy! I love you, Cordy, wait!"

Illyria sat up and stared down on him. "You are dreaming. She is no longer in this realm. It isn't Cordy who you felt near you yesterday, it was the other girl, Buffy. I'm sorry. I know what it is like not to be able to be in the dimension where you wish to be." She said with that disconcerting growing empathy she'd acquired since Wesley's death.

Angel nodded, swallowing hard, fists clenched in heart-filled agony. Which is when he felt something. A ruby red teardrop in his palm.

_It was real. She'll wait. She loves me._

_'Cause I love you,_

_Yes, I love you,_

_Oh, how, I love you._

_Oh, how, I love you._

* * *

_Breathe deep the gathering gloom_

_Watch lights fade from every room_

_Bedsitter people look back and lament_

_Another day's useless energy spent._

The curtains around the hospital bed made Charles Gunn look paler and more gaunt than he was normally. But he was awake. "Annie?"

"Charles! Oh, God, Charles, you're awake!" Anne catapulted to her feet and rushed to hug him, but stopped short as she stood at her uncomfortable plastic visitor's chair, mindful of the tubes and wires protruding from her friend.

"Hey, I'm not dead. That's pretty tight." He managed to smile and looked at her. "How long you been sitting there?"

"A couple days, give or take a break."

Gunn's eyes were filled with gratitude, then worry. "Angel? Spike, Illyria. Did they make it?"

"Everyone's fine. Even you." She bit her lip. "You scared all of us so bad." She gasped out around a hand clasped over her mouth. She began to cry, shuddering little sobs escaping her as she found the hand that wasn't connected to an IV. "The world would be a scary place without Charles Gunn in it."

"It's already scary, Annie."

"But I always feel better knowing you're around." She confessed. "Seeing you the other day- it was like old times, it was better. You were back with the crew, in the neighborhood, helping. You do so much good. More than people will ever know, Charles Gunn. It breaks my heart to think of you not being there."

Gunn let his feeble fingers tighten on hers. "Scares me to think of you not bein' around either, Annie girl. You do more good in a different way, than I could ever do." She opened her mouth to contradict him, but he laughed with a wince and forestalled her. "Don't worry. I'm not goin' anywhere. I gotta get up out of this bed, and get back to evil ass whoopin' and I think we may have done a little damage outside the building that I better clean up." He said sarcastically.

"Yeah. You have a little area to fix up. It's called downtown LA." Annie rolled her eyes. "Just get better. We need you."

* * *

_Impassioned lovers wrestle as one,_

_Lonely man cries for love and has none._

"How did we go for a year without this?" Buffy cried, slippery like a copper seal, hands roving over him as she rode him this time around.

"I dunno. Never find out again, right?"

"So right. So right. Oh yeah, Spike, right there, right there, right there-" Buffy's chant broke off with a sudden yelp and gasp. Spike dislodged her from her perch on his cock only to haul her quivering knees up and place them over his face, grip her rear, and hold her tight.

His tongue danced inside her and he drank, there actually being enough to drink after an hour or so of passionate coupling. He literally drank down their juices, slurping and kneading, wide mouth widening to engulf her, clit to perineum, and make love to her with his tongue.

"You keep doing that and you'll drown." Buffy realized she could feel her juices literally flowing, not just collecting inside, but pouring out from her hot core down his pale throat.

"I'm already dead. Can't drown me. I'd like it if you tried, though." He winked, mouth still buried in its delicious nest. "Drown me with your juice, tear me up, wild thing, burn me up, firebird- just never leave me lonely again."

"I swear I won't."

* * *

_New mother picks up and suckles her son,_

_Senior citizens wish they were young._

Illyria patted Angel's healing arms awkwardly as she removed herself from his presence. _I am not suited for the role of caregiver. _She had had that thought at least a hundred times in the past day, yet she continued to do it. However, now that he seemed to be peacefully asleep, not talking or calling out fitfully, she eagerly separated herself. She went to sleep in the corner sofa farthest away from him, liking the feeling of being removed from others, at a distance from human and mortal pain and suffering, above that, as she was destined to be. Gods know no pain. She wished she were home, powerful, vital, inhuman once more.

It was the shell she'd been merged with, Illyria assured herself, that made her hurt in her heart. It was the shell that found the ache worsening when she was alone. She refused to admit Spike's idea of "comforting" had been a good one for her true self, not just the old fragments and memories she'd been forced to carry with her.

She did not need sleep as others did, but she did need some. She slowly let her eyes close and found herself slipping peacefully into blackness.

"About time. You former immortals and your odd hours." Wesley's voice was cool and amused. "I've been waiting for ages to speak to you."

Illyria rushed to him, wild eyed, as she saw him standing in the darkness. "You live?" She cried.

"Not I." Wesley gave a small grin and watched her pull up short.

"Then what is this?"

"This is your dream. Apparently. Good Lord, it's bleak in here. Is this all you have to occupy your slumbers? Blackness?"

"I don't live as mortals do, my brain does not behave as theirs does." Her face took on an angry cast. "Is this what the dead do to torment the living in your world? Haunt their rest? Angel cries out for Cordelia, is that because she invades his mind as you're doing to me?" Her tone was filling with bitterness and rage.

Wesley, as he always seemed to be in her case, was the model of patience. "I take it you object to my presence?" He smiled slightly. "Shall I leave?"

"No." Illyria answered quickly. Then closed her eyes wearily. "The image of you hurts me."

"I know. The image of you always hurt me, too." He reached out and dared to trace her face. Fred's face, gone so horribly wrong, yet still so clearly Fred.

"So you return to pay me in kind?" Illyria could accept that. Vengeance was an old emotion. So was love for that matter, but her kind did not have it.

"I return to thank you. I know what you did. I know how you feel. And I know that it hurts you." He dared to keep his hand on that face, and look into the frightening eyes that most couldn't hold contact with for more than a second.

Her eyes felt some kind of malfunction occur. Water rushing from the inside out, and overflowing.

"Oh, Illyria..." Wesley was shocked, his tone soft and mournful. "Illyria, you don't need to do that. Not for me." He hesitated before continuing. "Listen to me. I came to value you greatly, but my heart belongs to someone else. Don't miss me too much. Miss me as a friend."

"I do not have friends." She spat and ashamedly wiped at her faulty eyes as they stained her cheeks.

"Then I was your first friend. I treasure that honor. Your heart hurts because I'm not in your world anymore." He patted her shoulder once, gently. "I told you I'd help you understand this world. Think of this as my last lesson."

"Then you'll leave me in peace?" She demanded, forcing the words out because she didn't know if she wanted to be left in peace, or if she liked the pain of his company, for the small familiarity of having him to speak to again.

"Yes, then I'll be gone. My soul has an appointment with its mate." His smile suddenly was beatific, peaceful in a craggy, stubbled face.

"I though I destroyed the soul of the shell." Illyria found an odd sense of relief flooding her.

"You fragmented it horribly, but Fred's strong. And even one of those pieces is enough of herself to last an eternity. That's what's left, and that's where I'm going to be. With her."

"You came to give me this last lesson. That what is important survives?" Illyria extrapolated that from all he'd said.

"Ah- no. I mean yes, but that wasn't the point I came to make. Although it is a very good one." He looked pleased. "You'll do fine here. You find meanings I don't even think of."

"I am smarter than all of you." She reminded him with an impatient toss of her head.

"As you say. But- you still are learning some things. Your heart, what you do with others, that's new." His face grew grave. "Angel may not be around forever."

"He will not live as long as I."

"Exactly." Wesley knew the truth of that, a truth she didn't even know. "What will you do? When he's gone?"

Illyria considered. "Spike and Charles Gunn are still here. I suppose I will remain with them."

"Charles has Anne. Spike might not want to stay in this city. There may be someplace else he needs to be, a person he needs to be with."

"Then I would be alone." The idea was both comforting and frightening. She cursed herself for the comforting portion.

"You needn't be alone. They both will be your friends, you just have to change the way you think of the relationship. We are at the end of an era, Illyria. Soon this little band of brothers will splinter into their own camps, all of them doing good, but all of them doing it differently."

Illyria thought. "Doing good. That's the battle and destruction I joined in your presence."

"Well- technically, although not all battle is good. Battling evil-"

"Wesley, do not lecture me on those who are evil and those who are good. I learned to pick out the evil ones quickly." Her face cleared. "I enjoyed that. That felt like home. That made my power -" No. That had not made her power return. That was lost love. For him. "I will seek out evil and destroy it. I will hunt down all the ones in league with those who hurt you. I will avenge you."

"I'm avenged, my love." The term slipped out, and it gave her heart a little crack of pain and light all at once. "My friend. You have avenged me. Don't make a mission about one man. Make it about the idea. Evil hurts, causes pain, takes away lovers and friends. Stop it. I know you can."

"I know I can." She replied confidently. "I will travel and hunt the evil ones in this realm. And when I'm done I'll go to another."

"You do that." He didn't bother to tell her she'd never be done in this realm, because there's always someone somewhere who chooses the wrong path. "When you get lonely, you'll come to your friends. You may even make new ones. If you ever get an urge for a tweedy Englishman- the older, more boring version of myself- look up Rupert Giles." He smiled mischievously. "Yes, please do that someday. I'd love to see the look on his face when he meets you..."

"I will do that. I know my mission now. Whatever else the others choose, I know what path I choose." She leaned forward suddenly and kissed him hard on the lips and the pushed him away. "That was the shell. Not I."

"Of course." Wesley felt as though he'd been slapped in the mouth- yet quite enjoyably. "Goodbye for now, my friend."

"Goodbye." Illyria nodded curtly, and waited for the solid dome of blackness to make up her dreamscape once more. "Goodbye... my love."

* * *

_Cold hearted orb that rules the night_

"So that was Charles Gunn. Wow. He's- not what I expected." Buffy and Spike strolled arm and arm in the moonlight, the next night, walking the several miles from the hospital back to his basement flat was nothing to them. People stared at Spike's healing face, but he was already so much better, and he was only interested in Buffy, so he didn't mind.

"I'm gonna miss him. We'll email." Spike laughed, picturing the two of them battle hardened men with thug-like tendencies at times, sitting down to type up letters across the sea.

"I think Anne has a crush on him."

"Then if the boy has any sense he'll take her up on the offer of affection." Spike frowned. "Did she used to be in Sunnydale?"

"You bit her neck at that Sunset Vampire Lovers Club place thingy." Buffy reminded him with a scowl. "When you were waiting for me to get there so you could kill me."

"Ah. You grabbed Dru. Trade off. No one got hurt. Much."

"Except Ford." Buffy whispered.

Spike's soul stung. "He sold you out."

"I know. I staked him. After you turned him."

"I'm sorry."

"Me, too."

They walked in silence. Spike suddenly perked up and said cheerfully. "I told Anne all the flat's furniture could go to her shelter when I head back across the pond."

Buffy laughed. "That probably makes you two even. I think Anne would do anything for those kids. I liked getting to talk to her. We've run into each other a few times in the last eight years." Buffy sighed.

"Gunn's gonna get back to his old haunts as well. Street patrols. Join up for the big battles when the good guys sound the clarion call..."

"We'll have to make a special Slayer signal we can shine in the sky to call all the good guys in for apocalypse support." She laughed. It was funny, but being in love made even the big serious things in life take on a lighter outlook.

"Get us all Good Guy League rings that flash a secret message when we're needed." Spike added. He paused and looked up at the full moon and then down at the girl with him. "It's a beautiful life, Slayer."

"It is now." Buffy kissed him deeply, not caring they were in public, not caring when his hands seemed to wander down automatically and start kneading her back and her cheeks and-

"What's that?" Spike's head tilted in puzzlement. "Don't tell me they make falsies for your bum, Slayer?"

"What are you- oh!" Buffy laughed and reached into her pockets. "Human blood. Bagged, donated of course."

"You stole these from the hospital?"

"Dawn showed me a few moves." Buffy giggled.

"You stole blood. For me?" He wanted to drop to his knees and propose at that moment.

"Well, _I _sure don't want it." She quipped. Then softened. "It'll help you heal faster."

"I love you."

"Duh. Here." She handed him the bags. "We need those sharp pointy straws like Capri Sun bags have." She sighed. Spike gave her an incredulous look and morphed into his vampiric form.

"I do. Called fangs." He rolled his eyes. He sucked greedily on the cold blood, even though he preferred it warm. This still worked, he could feel himself getting better with each sip. "You don't mind this?" He asked cautiously. "Used to gross you out."

Buffy gave him a "Have you been with me for the last day and half?" look of incredulity. "You were gone. Now you're back. You honestly think I care if you eat so you'll get better? You might be different, but that stupid streak is still in there." She took his arm possessively again and they strolled. Spike was silent, grateful. "No, I don't care. I let go of a lot of things, unimportant things I cared about. Even- even the most important things I cared about."

She fell silent and Spike pulled her closer. He knew what she meant. Before they'd gone to see Gunn in the hospital, they'd been to see Angel. She'd told him their plans, in a soft voice, holding his hands, and they smiled at each other. Angel seemed to understand. He didn't say much, seemed tired, seemed accepting. But he let go. She'd let go.

_But she didn't let go of me. _He purred in satisfaction as her arm returned his gesture, pulling him tightly to her side, like he was always meant to be there.

* * *

_Removes the colors from our sight._

_Red is grey and yellow white_

Illyria finished telling Angel about her dream, now that they were alone. In turn, Angel told her about his trip to some ethereal plane, showed her the small red pearl that was the embodiment of his reward. "I swallow it whole. And then- then I'm human." He couldn't believe it. His dream come true.

Illyria also looked like she couldn't believe it. "Why would you curse yourself like that?"

Angel sighed. He tried to explain. "It's not like humanity is for you. You were cursed with a human shell. I am a human, cursed with a demon center. You want to be back in your immortal form because that's the rightful form for you to be in. I'm the opposite. I'm supposed to be in a mortal form, and I'm not. I want that humanity back, see?"

She saw. "So you will take it?"

"Yeah. Yeah. I was waiting- I don't know why, felt like I needed to wait- but- I feel like I'm ready now. I talked to Gunn on the phone. My son is safe. And he kicks ass, just like his old man!" He beamed with paternal pride. Then the smile left. "Buffy doesn't need me here, Spike never needed me, and uh- yeah. I said all my goodbyes."

Illyria looked at him. "Why should you say 'goodbye'?"

"I don't know. I guess this is goodbye to the old me. That's all I meant. Next time they see me, it'll be different. I'll be human." He savored the word. Something nagged at him, and he could see Illyria had the same questioning look on her face. "What?"

"You are certain that is what you want?"

"Very." He whispered, and brought the blood red teardrop to his mouth."Here's to being demon free." He laughed once and swallowed.

Blood burst back into his system, mortal blood, his own, his heart beat, the ever present extra bones that made up his demon face melted into his own human ones. There was rip inside of himself, like a cancer torn free, and for the first time in centuries there was no dark thing lurking inside himself. He belonged wholly to himself, fully human once again. He laughed with joy and screamed in exultation. Even the stern woman by his bedside looked at him with wonder in her eyes as he yelled, roared happily, "I'm freeeeee! I'm_ freeee_!"

And then things began to change. Red mist and black mist flooded his vision, and he choked and gasped, suddenly lying back. He had the brief thought that Illyria looked like Fred, not just her physical features, but something in her face- when real emotion passed over it. Emotions flew over it now, quiet unfamiliar happiness changing to fear and worry as she fell back with him.

"Angel!" Illyria bent over him.

"What's happening?" Angel looked up wide eyed.

"Angel!" Illyria didn't answer the question, she seemed frantic, tugging his shirt open, his bandages off. "Oh. Oh, mortality! Humanity, it's a curse, I told you!" She shouted and held up her hands. They were coated in blood.

Angel understood. Vampires could live- that is, exist- with huge wounds like he had. Humans couldn't. His injuries from the battle. A human would die from them, even partially healed. "Oh." But he still laughed, he breathed in deeply, fresh air, real air for the first time in over two centuries.

"I'll phone the hospital!" Illyria jumped from his side but he caught her hand to stop her. "You're dying!"

"I know. Isn't it wonderful?" He laughed once more and smiled up at her, watching the combination of blue and white blur to gray. "My soul- it's safe now. This life- has been a long bad dream. Don't you see? I said goodbyes for a reason..." His voice was getting fainter, and the room was getting darker- but there was a bright white mist at the end of the room. A beautiful face in the center... "Not long until I can see her again..." He whispered.

"But you- you have fought to attain this gift! You cannot just give it up! You are a champion, you earned this, you are a fighter, you must fight for it!" Illyria was furious at him for lying down and accepting his demise.

"I fought for it for so long... I changed. All I really want," he held her hand firmly and smiled at her, even though he couldn't see her anymore, "is for the pain to stop. You guys keep up the fight. I'm all done battling for my salvation. It's right- here." His breathing sputtered to a wheeze, and the white mist enveloped him. A tearful Cordelia held out her hands to him, smiling so hard her glowing face looked as though it might split in half.

"You are a warrior." Illyria entreated him once more.

"No... that's who I used to be." His voice was barely audible, coming in pants now, coming through smiling lips that had turned cold and pale blue as the blood flowed away from him. "Don't worry. Not- who I am -anymore."

* * *

Illyria watched the eyes roll back and close, the smile fixed in perfect, permanent peace. She forced herself away from the body, to the sink to wash her crimson hands. She was enraged, but it was slipping slowly away. He was with his love now. That was why he didn't fight. He had fought enough, and he knew his final reward awaited.

She looked at the cold, still form on the couch. _That is not Angel. That is only his shell. I understand._ She felt pain and pride, confusion. She was changing. He had changed. _Humans are imperfect and inconstant. They change... I am changing, too._ She looked in the mirror and saw that her eyes had betrayed her again, tears made clear traces down her perfect face. She whispered her confession to herself before she set about the task of taking care of her friend's final needs.

"I am not the being I used to be."

* * *

In heaven, Angel let the Shanshu float from his soul, and it flew, returned to wherever the place was that prophecies rest. Someday- maybe- Spike would get the chance to use it. But he was done with it now."Hi Honey. I'm home." He turned to the woman drifting beside him.

"About time!" Cordelia scolded with a smile. "Wow. You look really good in white." She surveyed the heavenly figure before her, clad in white, radiant, a perfect match for her.

"It's the lighting." He blushed and let her wrap her arms around his neck and he sighed into her hair. "So. You wanna show me around? I've been in a lot of different hells, but this is the first time I get to see a heaven." He thought his soul might burst from pure joy and relief.

"I was thinking we'd try out the perfect happiness deal, now that it's safe." She giggled mischievously. Angel let out a little playful growl and she squealed. She ran, pulling him after,and he followed her, laughing, into eternity.

* * *

_But we decide which is right._

_And which is an illusion_

Spike rubbed at his eyes, Buffy rubbed at hers. "I'll cancel the flight." Spike said shakily, reaching for the phone again.

"No. Spike. He would have wanted us to get home."

"But- he's gonna be buried. He'll have a funeral. Proper funeral." His voice was thicker than he'd have liked. _Spend all those years wishin' he was dead, spent the last week hopin' he didn't die in a bloody war, an' he pops his clogs within five minutes of becomin' a real boy. Marvelous. The stupid screw up..._

"I only knew him as a dead man. Who had a proper funeral -sometime before the Revolutionary War." Buffy choked on a sob. "I don't want to see another dead human. I don't want to remember them putting him in a box like it's his big finish." She shook her head vehemently, mourning again for a man she'd already spent years grieving for. He would not spoil her finally found joy, nor would he want to. He had always loved her- in a way that wanted the best for her, even if it _wasn't_ the best. Maybe leaving without attending his burial wasn't right in the eyes of the world's etiquette, but she believed it was right between them. "His death isn't the end for him. He's gone home. He wants to be with Cordelia. Weird as _that _is. He's not really dead, he's just in a new place, in a new form."

"I know how he felt." Spike cupped her face in his hands and they kissed, the kiss meant to be comforting, was becoming more needful. She slid into his lap, straddling him as he sat on his coffee table. He could feel her warmth pressing into him and he moaned.

"I know how he felt, too. All he wanted was to be home with the person he loved. That's all we want too." Her kiss turned ferocious, desperate, and they were knocked backwards onto the floor.

They were a tangle of limbs and hot kisses, tears to kiss away and bodies to soothe. "Do you think this is bad timing? Disrespectful to his passing- or- or something?" Buffy asked as she ripped his belt from its loops and clutched his waist to hers.

"He never got to be with her on Earth, from what I could tell. What d'you think his homecoming is like?" Spike asked with a leer and stifled laugh.

"Not as good as ours." Buffy replied, smile gracing her face as she caressed his. "Or maybe just as good, but no one's could be better."

"Amen to that, Pet." He kissed the edge of her tearing eyes down to her soft upper curves, and then lay there, listening to her heartbeat. "He had this. A heartbeat. For a minute or so." His brain whirled with the poetic and grief stricken way justice played out. "But he wouldn't be happy being alive without her. Not wholly happy. I know first hand. It's great gettin' to be alive again- well in my case, undead again- but it doesn't feel like it should unless the person you want most is there."

"I know. I know just what you mean." Coming back from heaven was hard, but living in the world was harder. Living in it this last year without her questionable but unshakable rock to lean on in the form of Spike? That had been the hardest. "I don't think we need to feel sad for him anymore." Buffy's face cleared rapidly as realization struck her fully.

"No. No, we don't need to do that." Spike gave her a look of understanding. He'd so often been the one to understand her...

"What a person wants and needs can change. He has what he wanted." She pulled him down to her and kept him there, would always keep him there, with her. "He has what he wanted. And so do I."

"So do _we_."

"So do we."

_The End of the Old_

_The Beginning of the New_


End file.
